Bookkeeping, Accounting, and Auditing Clerks Average Salary in Illinois
$51,860 average · $51,860 median · BLS OEWS 2025
SOC Code: 43-3031What is this?
This page shows employer-reported wages for Bookkeeping, Accounting, and Auditing Clerks in Illinois, drawn from the Bureau of Labor Statistics OEWS survey — median and mean pay, the full percentile distribution, and the industries that employ this occupation locally. Industry placement creates most of the variation — administrative staff in finance, legal, and tech out-earn those in retail or hospitality substantially. Specialized variants (medical, legal, executive support) pay above general roles. Software fluency has become the implicit credential: workers who run the systems, rather than just use them, hold the better-paid and more durable positions.
How much do Bookkeeping, Accounting, and Auditing Clerks make in Illinois?
The average bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks salary in Illinois is $51,860 per year. That works out to about $24.93 per hour on average. BLS counts roughly 51,470 bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks jobs in Illinois.
Mean and median are close, so pay is relatively concentrated around $51,860. Entry-level roles (10th percentile) report about $51,860; experienced workers at the 90th percentile report about $51,860 — a 0% spread from bottom to top. Figures are employer-reported wages from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics program — not self-reported survey averages — so they are the right baseline for offers, raises, and relocation decisions in this market.
How Office and Administrative Support Careers Are Structured
Office and administrative support is the largest occupational group in the country and the one most visibly reshaped by software: roles built on routine document and data handling have shrunk for two decades, while roles requiring coordination and judgment have held. The trend data behind this page matters as much as the current wage.
The wage tables and percentile chart on this page show how bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks pay is distributed in Illinois specifically — and because state-level wages for the same occupation routinely differ by 30% or more, the local figures here are the ones that matter for offers, raises, and relocation decisions in this market.
What Moves Pay in This Field
Industry placement creates most of the variation — administrative staff in finance, legal, and tech out-earn those in retail or hospitality substantially. Specialized variants (medical, legal, executive support) pay above general roles. Software fluency has become the implicit credential: workers who run the systems, rather than just use them, hold the better-paid and more durable positions.
Entry typically requires a high-school diploma and office skills, making this a major on-ramp occupation. The strategic question is direction of consolidation: administrative experience plus accumulated domain knowledge converts well into operations, HR, bookkeeping, and coordination roles — paths that lead out of the most automation-exposed work and up the wage distribution.
New to reading wage distributions? Our guide to salary percentiles explains how to place yourself on the chart above, and the negotiation playbook shows how to use these numbers in an actual conversation.
What Do Bookkeeping, Accounting, and Auditing Clerks Do?
Bookkeeping, Accounting, and Auditing Clerks positions belong to the office and administrative support field. Office and administrative support is the largest occupational group in the country and the one most visibly reshaped by software: roles built on routine document and data handling have shrunk for two decades, while roles requiring coordination and judgment have held. The trend data behind this page matters as much as the current wage.
Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) Code: 43-3031
Bookkeeping, Accounting, and Auditing Clerks pay in Illinois
In Illinois, bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks report a median of $51,860 (about $24.93/hour) across roughly 51,470 jobs. The local pay band runs from about $51,860 at the 10th percentile to $51,860 at the 90th.
Compared with the national distribution, local industry mix and cost of living are the main reasons Illinois wages for this occupation sit where they do — toggle Regional Price Parity on this page to see purchasing-power-adjusted pay.
What your paycheck is really worth in Illinois
Prices in Illinois run 0% below the national average (RPP 100.0). So a nominal salary of $51,860 has the buying power of about $51,882 in national terms.
Illinois vs. United States for Bookkeeping, Accounting, and Auditing Clerks
The median bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks salary in Illinois is $51,860, which is -3.2% below the national median of $53,560 (mean pay is -3.3% below the U.S. mean of $53,616). Among 51 states and D.C. with OEWS data, Illinois ranks #22 by median wage for this occupation. Illinois accounts for about 0.7% of U.S. bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks employment in the latest OEWS release.
See every state ranked for this occupation on the best-paying states page, or compare purchasing power on real wages.
Income reality check
The median salary for Bookkeeping, Accounting, and Auditing Clerks in Illinois of $51,860 falls in the Stably paid band of this framework - roughly ~12% of the U.S. population and ~15% of the global population sit in this band.
Illustrative relative standing for education only - this ladder is a simplified framework, not an official Census, BLS, or World Bank statistical series. Salary figures on Wage Atlas come from official BLS OEWS data.
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AI Replacement Risk Analysis
Forward-looking analysis of automation and AI impact
- Knowledge-based work - moderate automation risk
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Occupation Report Card
Top Industries for Bookkeeping, Accounting, and Auditing Clerks
| $55,850 | $53,470 | $27 | 100,040 | |
SOC: 23 | $55,630 | $54,890 | $27 | 116,680 |
| $54,772 | $51,643 | $26 | 256,870 | |
| $54,217 | $51,365 | $26 | 508,820 | |
| $53,888 | $51,223 | $26 | 139,160 | |
| Find Educational Services Jobs | ||||
SOC: 42 | $53,610 | $50,660 | $26 | 100,750 |
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SOC: 25-2021 • 82% match | $72,861 | $72,710 | $35 | 10,929,790 |
SOC: 49-3023 • 82% match | $56,610 | $56,420 | $27 | 3,751,400 |
SOC: 53-3033 • 85% match | $48,694 | $48,730 | $23 | 4,983,020 |
SOC: 31-1131 • 86% match | $42,834 | $42,460 | $21 | 8,441,020 |
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SOC: 33-9032 • 82% match | $42,595 | $42,070 | $20 | 7,593,360 |
SOC: 25-9045 • 83% match | $38,392 | $38,560 | $18 | 10,657,540 |
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Bookkeeping Accounting And Auditing Clerks in Other States
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