The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics' (BLS) most current occupational employment data put the number of employed medical transcriptionists at nearly 56,000 as of May 2021.  At that time, more than 7,300 medical transcriptionists were employed in the four-state Southwestern U.S. region.  An examination of BLS data reveals the Southwestern U.S. to be one of the weaker paying regions in the nation for medical transcriptionists. Oklahoma was the only state in the region where the medical transcriptionist annual mean wage level was above the national average for the profession, while every other state in the region ranked in the bottom quartile of all states for that pay metric for medical transcriptionists.  Further review of BLS data from May 2021 reveals the following about medical transcriptionist pay in the Southwestern U.S.:

Medical Transcriptionist Pay in the Southwestern U.S.

State	# Employed	Annual Mean Wages	Wage Rank*
AZ	1,200	$32,490	39th
NM	410	$28,150	50th
OK	760	$37,080	20th
TX	4,980	$30,170	46th
U.S.	55,830	$34,220	-------

(*) annual mean wage ranking among the 50 states

Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics OES. Data accessed on May 21, 2022