Hospice Care Worker
You care for people who are dying, usually in their homes, during the last weeks or months of their lives. The work is intimate, physically and emotionally heavy, and one of the most honest jobs you can do.
What Tuesday looks like
Your first visit is at 8am — Mrs. Alvarez, late-stage cancer, mostly sleeping now. You bathe her, change the bed, manage her pain meds with her daughter who hasn't really slept. You sit for ten minutes after, just being there. Next is a man with end-stage COPD whose wife wants to talk more than he needs care; you listen. Lunch in your car between visits. The afternoon brings a new admission — you go over the comfort care plan with a family that's clearly in denial, and you don't push. Your fourth patient died overnight; you stop by to support the family and help with post-death logistics. You're charting in your car at 6pm, eyes burning. You go home and your roommate asks how your day was and you don't really know how to answer. The work is meaningful in a way that doesn't always feel good.
Career profile
Career shape
Tap or hover each point to explore a dimension
In the landscape
Tap or hover any dot to identify a career
Salary range
No salary data
10-yr growth
+21%
Reward profile
3 quick questions to see how this career fits the way you work.
What school costs — and when it pays off
Certificate program · A short training program — usually done in under a year.
The chart shows your annual salary over time alongside the annual loan repayment. The shaded band at the bottom is what goes to the loan each year — when it disappears, your full salary is yours.
Doesn't fully earn back the school cost until around year 15. The upfront debt is real.
Entry-level salary
$31K
25th percentile — what most people start at
Experienced salary
$48K
75th percentile — after ~10 years in the field
School & training cost
$8K
+ $3K interest over 10 yrs
Loan paid off
Year 11
$91/mo for 10 years
First year of work
After loan's paid (yr 11)
Salary range reflects 25th–75th percentile nationally, growing from entry-level to experienced over 10 working years. School costs are national averages — yours will vary. Loan assumes you borrow the full amount at 6.54% interest, repaid over 10 years. Monthly figures are pre-tax.
The first years
CNA Training (Months 1–4)
You're in a state-approved Certified Nursing Assistant program — usually 4 to 12 weeks, costing anywhere from free (if a hospice sponsors you) to about $1,500. You learn how to transfer a body that can't help you, change an adult diaper without making the person feel like a burden, take vitals, and recognize when something's wrong. Clinicals put you in a nursing home where you'll meet your first dying patient and figure out fast whether you can handle this work. A lot of people drop out here, and that's actually fine.
Year 1–2: New Hospice Aide
You're a Hospice Aide or CNA making roughly $16–$22/hr, driving between 5–8 patient homes a day in your own car (mileage reimbursement is usually garbage). The physical work is real — lifting, bathing, repositioning people who weigh more than you. The harder part is the emotional whiplash: you'll lose patients you got attached to, sometimes several in a week. You'll cry in your car. You'll also start to notice you're getting good at being calm when families are falling apart, which is a strange skill to develop at 19 or 20.
Year 3–4: Experienced Aide, At a Crossroads
You're competent now. You know how to read a room, manage a family in denial, catch a skin breakdown before it gets bad, and chart fast enough to actually eat lunch. Your pay has crept up to maybe $20–$25/hr but it's not really keeping up with what the work costs you. Burnout is real and you're noticing it in yourself — the flatness, the dreams about patients, the way you can't explain your day to normal people.
Decision point
You have to decide whether to stay an aide long-term or go back to school. Option A: stay where you are, accept the ceiling on pay, and protect your energy by being really good at the job you have. Option B: enroll in an LPN program (~1 year) or an RN program (2–4 years) — hospice will often help pay if you commit to staying. Option C: pivot into a related role like bereavement support, hospice social work (requires a BSW/MSW), or chaplaincy. There's no wrong answer, but staying an aide forever and resenting it is the worst version.
Year 5–7: Settled In or Moving Up
If you stayed an aide, you're now the person new hires shadow. You've found a rhythm — maybe a specific hospice agency you trust, maybe a 4-day schedule that protects your weekends. If you went the LPN/RN route, you're now doing more clinical work: managing symptom protocols, calling the doctor about medication changes, doing admissions, and getting paid noticeably more ($28–$40/hr as an LPN, $35–$50/hr as an RN in hospice). Either way, the work itself hasn't changed much — people are still dying, families are still struggling — but you've built the calluses to keep showing up without it destroying you. Most days.