Nursing Assistant (CNA) Salary in Illinois: Pay by Experience, City & Take-Home

A nursing assistant in Illinois earns a median of $45,960 a year, or about $22.10 an hour, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2025). Most CNAs in the state land between $37,590 at the low end and $54,050 at the high end. That median sits roughly $3,700 above the national median of $42,260, which puts Illinois among the stronger-paying states for this role.

How Illinois compares to the national average

Illinois pays nursing assistants more than the typical U.S. state. The state median of $45,960 runs $3,700 ahead of the national median of $42,260, a gap of about 8.8 percent. For a full-time CNA, that difference is real money: it works out to roughly $308 more per month before tax, just for working in Illinois rather than the median state.

The mean (average) Illinois wage is $45,230, slightly below the median of $45,960. When the mean trails the median, it usually means a cluster of lower-paying jobs is pulling the average down while the middle of the pay scale holds firm. For CNAs that pattern fits: long-term care and skilled nursing facilities anchor the bottom, while hospitals and the Chicago metro pull the top up. The $730 gap between mean and median is small, which signals a relatively even distribution rather than a few very high earners skewing the picture. For a job seeker that is reassuring, because it means the advertised median is a number you can realistically expect to reach, not a figure inflated by a handful of outlier postings. The table below frames the spread.

One more point that searchers miss: Illinois employs about 68,640 nursing assistants, one of the largest CNA workforces in the country. A deep job market means more openings, more facility competition for staff, and more room to move between settings for a raise without leaving the state.

It helps to read the percentile spread as a whole, because the average alone hides where real CNAs sit. The 25th percentile is $39,420 and the 75th is $48,380, so the middle half of Illinois nursing assistants earn somewhere inside that $8,960 band. The bottom 10 percent earn $37,590 or less, and the top 10 percent earn $54,050 or more. That distribution is fairly tight by U.S. standards, which tells you two things. First, a brand-new CNA in Illinois starts from a higher floor than in many lower-paying states. Second, the ceiling on the role without adding credentials is real: even top earners cap near $54,050, so the way past that number runs through specialty units, overtime, or moving into a different healthcare title entirely. The sections below map both routes.

Nursing assistant pay in Illinois by experience

The BLS reports pay by percentile rather than by years on the job, but the two track closely for CNAs. New assistants who just passed the state competency exam start near the 10th percentile. Pay climbs as you pick up specialty units, night and weekend differentials, and a reputation that lets you negotiate. Here is how the curve looks in Illinois.

The jump from entry to senior is about $16,460 a year, a 44 percent climb from the 10th to the 90th percentile. Most of that comes from three levers: moving into a hospital or specialty setting, stacking shift differentials, and tenure raises at facilities that reward staying. The gap between the 25th and 50th percentile alone is $6,540, which is why the first two or three years matter so much. Get past early career and your pay accelerates.

Notice where the money clusters. From the 50th percentile ($45,960) to the 75th ($48,380) the gain is only $2,420, but from the 75th to the 90th ($54,050) it widens again to $5,670. In plain terms, getting from mid-career to “experienced” pay is a modest step, while reaching the top tier takes a real change: a specialty certification, a hospital role, or a steady night-and-weekend schedule that loads on differentials. Tenure raises in long-term care tend to stall around the median, so CNAs who want the top $54,050 figure usually have to change settings rather than wait for annual bumps. The hourly view makes the same point. A median CNA at $22.10 an hour who moves to the 90th percentile rate of about $25.99 gains roughly $3.89 an hour, which across a full-time year is most of that $16,460 spread.

Nursing assistant salary by Illinois metro

Location inside Illinois changes your pay more than most people expect. The Chicago metro pays the most by a wide margin, and it also holds the bulk of the state’s CNA jobs. Downstate metros pay less, though so does the cost of living in most of them. These are the five largest metro areas by reported CNA employment.

Chicago’s $46,940 median tops Champaign-Urbana’s $39,890 by $7,050 a year, the widest in-state spread on the board. Chicago also accounts for about 67 percent of every CNA job in the table, so the statewide median leans heavily on what hospitals and large skilled-nursing chains pay in the metro. If you live downstate and can commute to or relocate within the Chicago area, that move alone is one of the clearest pay raises available without changing roles. Peoria sits in the middle at $43,040, helped by its hospital systems.

The four downstate metros cluster within about $3,150 of each other, from Champaign-Urbana’s $39,890 up to Peoria’s $43,040. That tight grouping matters because it means the real pay decision in Illinois is binary: Chicago metro or not. Only Chicago’s $46,940 clears the statewide median of $45,960, which confirms how much the big metro pulls the average up. Peoria’s edge over Rockford ($43,040 versus $40,140, a $2,900 gap) is the one downstate distinction worth weighing, and it tracks the presence of larger hospital employers there. Springfield at $40,070 and Rockford at $40,140 are effectively tied. For a downstate CNA, the practical takeaway is that switching metros within the southern and central parts of the state rarely moves pay much, so the bigger gains come from changing the care setting or adding a credential rather than the zip code.

Take-home pay after taxes in Illinois

Gross salary is not what hits your bank account. Illinois charges a flat 3.95 percent state income tax, and federal income tax plus FICA (Social Security and Medicare) come out on top of that. Here is the after-tax math across the experience curve, for a single filer taking the standard deduction in the 2026 tax year.

At the median, a CNA keeps $36,692 of a $45,960 salary, an effective combined tax rate of about 20.2 percent. That leaves roughly $3,058 a month to live on. The effective rate barely moves as pay rises, from 19.2 percent at entry to 20.8 percent at the top, because Illinois taxes income at one flat rate instead of brackets that ramp up.

Look at how little the tax bite changes across the curve. An entry CNA at $37,590 nets $30,381 (about $2,532 a month), and a senior CNA at $54,050 nets $42,792 (about $3,566 a month). The senior earns $16,460 more gross than the entry worker, and keeps $12,411 of it after tax, so roughly 75 cents of every extra dollar earned at the top actually lands in the bank. State tax is the most predictable line: it runs $1,861 at entry and $2,675 at the senior level, always close to that flat 3.95 percent of gross. FICA is the second-largest deduction at every stage, from $2,876 to $4,135, and it does not shrink, since Social Security and Medicare apply from the first dollar. Federal income tax is where the standard deduction does the most work, which is why the entry-level federal bill of $2,472 is so modest relative to gross. The clean lesson for a CNA weighing overtime or a higher-paying unit is that most of a raise survives the tax screen.

Now the comparison the AI overviews skip. Take that same $45,960 median and earn it in Texas instead, a state with no income tax. A CNA there nets about $38,967, compared with $36,692 in Illinois. That is a gap of $2,275 a year, money the Illinois state income tax claims that Texas does not. Over a decade of work, the difference is more than $22,000 in nominal take-home, all else equal.

The catch, and it matters, is that net pay alone is the wrong number. The figure that decides how you actually live is net pay minus local housing. Texas keeps an extra $2,275 of your salary, but that edge can vanish fast if rent or a mortgage runs higher where you land. Run your own numbers against your real rent before you treat any state’s tax advantage as a raise. The Illinois paycheck calculator breaks your check down line by line, and filing software like TurboTax can confirm your exact effective rate once deductions and credits are in.

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How to earn more as a CNA in Illinois

The pay curve above is not fixed. CNAs who move up the percentiles tend to do a handful of specific things. Here are the moves that actually raise a paycheck in this state.

• Target the Chicago metro. The $46,940 Chicago median beats the lowest-paying Illinois metros by up to $7,050 a year for the same job title. If relocation is on the table, this is the single largest in-state lever.
• Move from long-term care into a hospital. Acute-care and specialty units (ICU step-down, surgical, dialysis) sit toward the 75th and 90th percentiles, $48,380 to $54,050, well above the nursing-home baseline.
• Stack shift differentials. Nights, weekends, and holidays typically add a per-hour premium on top of base. A CNA working steady nights can clear several thousand dollars a year above a day-shift peer.
• Add certifications. Becoming a Certified Medication Aide, or training toward phlebotomy, EKG, or a patient-care-technician credential, moves you into higher-paid task lists. Short, stackable courses on platforms like Coursera can prep you for those credentials around your shifts.
• Use the CNA role as a launchpad. Many Illinois CNAs bridge into LPN or RN programs while working. An RN earns multiples of a CNA wage, and hospital tuition assistance often helps cover it.
• Negotiate at the offer stage and at review. With 68,640 CNA jobs statewide and chronic staffing shortages, facilities compete for reliable assistants. Sign-on bonuses and retention raises are common, and they are negotiable.
• Pick up overtime deliberately. Because most of a raise survives the 20.2 percent median tax screen, extra hours convert efficiently to take-home. A CNA moving from the $45,960 median toward the $48,380 experienced level through steady overtime keeps roughly three of every four added dollars.

Stack two or three of these and the math is real. A downstate CNA earning near the Champaign-Urbana median of $39,890 who relocates to Chicago, moves into a hospital unit, and works nights can plausibly close most of the $14,160 gap up to the senior figure of $54,050. None of these steps requires leaving the CNA title, and several can be done in the first few years on the job.

Job outlook for nursing assistants in Illinois

Illinois employs about 68,640 nursing assistants, one of the deepest CNA workforces in the nation. Demand is structural: an aging population, high turnover in long-term care, and hospitals that lean on CNAs to extend nursing teams all keep openings flowing. That scale is good news if you want stability or the freedom to switch employers for better pay without relocating.

Because openings are constant, the practical question is which employers pay best and treat staff well, not whether jobs exist. Comparing several offers side by side is the fastest way to find the top of your local range. Job boards like ZipRecruiter let you filter Illinois CNA roles by setting and pay so you can see where the $48,000-plus postings actually are.

Scale also gives Illinois CNAs bargaining power that workers in smaller states do not have. With 45,850 of the state’s 68,640 CNA jobs concentrated in the Chicago metro, a single large hiring market lets you compare hospital systems, skilled-nursing chains, and home-based employers without moving. That density is why the 75th-percentile figure of $48,380 is a realistic target rather than an outlier: enough employers compete for staff that reaching the upper-middle of the range is mostly about picking the right setting and shift. Downstate, where employment per metro runs in the low thousands, the better play is often loyalty plus credentials at one of the dominant hospital systems, since there are fewer rival bidders to set off a pay war.

Related and higher-paying roles in Illinois

If you want a clearer path to higher pay, it helps to see where a CNA sits next to nearby healthcare roles in the same state. Using BLS Illinois medians:

• A Clinical Laboratory Technologist in Illinois earns a median of $71,950, which is $25,990 MORE than a nursing assistant in Illinois. The trade-off is an associate or bachelor’s degree and certification.
• A Home Health and Personal Care Aide in Illinois earns a median of $38,060, which is $7,900 LESS than a nursing assistant in Illinois. The CNA credential and clinical scope account for most of that premium.

So a CNA already out-earns home-care aides here, and the lab-tech route is the bigger step up if you are willing to go back to school. The $25,990 gap to a clinical laboratory technologist is the clearest paid argument for additional schooling in this field: it is more than half a CNA’s entire median salary, recovered every year once you hold the credential. Many Illinois CNAs treat the role as a paid stepping stone, banking experience and tuition assistance while they study toward a higher-paying title. Explore the role pages and nearby states below.

Frequently asked questions

Sources: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS), 2025; federal and Illinois state tax parameters, 2026 tax year. Take-home figures are estimates for a single filer using the standard deduction. Last updated 2026. See our methodology.