Mental Health and Substance Abuse Social Workers
What the pay figures show
- Where are this job paid best? New York, at $79,380. That answer does not survive a pay stub. Take income tax out and California is ahead. Then count what things cost locally, and Vermont wins — the money there behaves like $59,618. Three questions. Three different states.
- The nominal leader for mental health and substance abuse social workers is New York at $79,380, but the ordering does not hold through either adjustment. Applying federal, FICA and state income tax moves the top position to California; deflating by regional price parity moves it again, to Vermont at $59,618 in national-average terms. ⚠️ Federal tax is not what does this — it is uniform across states and cannot change a ranking. State income tax reorders first, price level second, and the two act independently.
Compare this career across states
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Pay by state · May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
National median
$60,280
People doing it
132,810
Highest paid
$79,380
NY
Best off, really
$59,618
VT, after tax and prices
Lowest tenth
$39,740
Highest tenth
$104,170
Lowest, really
$36,240
SC
States with data
51
National average
$68,030
mean, not median
Prices where it goes furthest
96.64%
VT, against a national 100
Where this job actually pays best
- Where you do this job matters enormously. The best state pays roughly twice what the worst does. Prices alone cannot explain a gap that size. Level everything out and the range still runs $36,240 to $59,618.
- Roughly 132,810 people hold this job nationally, earning $60,280 in the middle. A solid, ordinary-sized job.
- Coverage is complete — all 51 jurisdictions publish this, on a middle wage of $60,280. Nothing is missing.
- Geographic dispersion in mental health and substance abuse social workers is unusually wide: the top state's median is approximately double the bottom's, a spread that price differentials cannot account for. The real-terms range, after tax and price deflation, still runs $36,240 to $59,618 — so the variation reflects genuine differences in local labor markets rather than a nominal illusion.
- 132,810 are employed nationally in mental health and substance abuse social workers, placing it well inside the reported range without approaching the highest-headcount occupations.
- Coverage for mental health and substance abuse social workers is complete at 51 jurisdictions. No suppression applies, so the highest and lowest figures above are genuinely the national extremes.
Pay band: Mental Health and Substance Abuse Social Workers
The national median for this job
50thpercentile, roughly
| Lowest tenth earn under | $39,740 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $60,280 |
| Top tenth earn over | $104,170 |
| This salary | $60,280 |
Positions between the published tenth, quarter, half, three-quarter and ninetieth points are estimated by straight line.
Where these numbers come from
| BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS), May 2025 estimates, time-series bulk download (oe.data.0.Current) | as of 2025-05-01 |
|---|
Steps in Mental Health and Substance Abuse Social Workers
The national median for this job
$60,280around the 50th percentile
| Lowest tenth | $39,740 |
|---|---|
| Middle | $60,280 |
| Top tenth | $104,170 |
The five points BLS publishes. Nothing between them is invented.
Mental Health and Substance Abuse Social Workers, state by state
The national median for this job
51states publish pay for this job
| Lowest | South Carolina · $39,930 |
|---|---|
| Highest | New York · $79,380 |
| Spread | $39,450 |
One dot per state that publishes this job. A missing state means suppressed data, not zero pay.
Best paid, and best off
The national median for this job
| Texas pays | $46,630 |
|---|---|
| Worth, after local prices | $47,986 |
Median pay against the same pay once BEA price parities are applied.
Every state, three ways
Sorted by what the money is actually worth. "Kept" is take-home for a single filer after federal, FICA and state income tax. "Really worth" divides that by the state's own price level, so a dollar in each row buys the same thing. Tap a state to put your own salary into it. States BLS does not publish for this job are absent — that means no published figure, not no work.
| State | Median pay | Kept after tax | Really worth |
|---|---|---|---|
| VT | $73,210 | $57,612 | $59,618 |
| MN | $75,020 | $58,029 | $58,962 |
| NM | $65,640 | $53,002 | $58,640 |
| CT | $78,640 | $60,578 | $58,423 |
| ND | $60,980 | $51,177 | $57,781 |
| NY | $79,380 | $60,984 | $56,663 |
| MD | $73,580 | $57,462 | $55,271 |
| AR | $58,590 | $47,548 | $54,963 |
| WY | $59,310 | $49,836 | $54,856 |
| NV | $62,900 | $52,720 | $54,362 |
| CA | $79,000 | $61,152 | $54,318 |
| WA | $70,460 | $58,399 | $53,793 |
| WI | $61,860 | $49,667 | $53,349 |
| CO | $65,620 | $52,727 | $52,008 |
| MI | $60,830 | $48,722 | $51,731 |
| DC | $73,310 | $57,085 | $51,519 |
| NH | $63,900 | $53,524 | $50,808 |
| VA | $64,240 | $50,864 | $50,486 |
| NC | $58,210 | $47,138 | $50,073 |
| KS | $56,330 | $44,586 | $49,560 |
| NJ | $66,590 | $53,545 | $49,176 |
| OR | $68,210 | $51,398 | $49,080 |
| RI | $60,990 | $49,318 | $48,632 |
| DE | $60,060 | $47,672 | $48,031 |
| SD | $48,920 | $41,487 | $47,094 |
| AK | $56,710 | $47,746 | $46,941 |
| ME | $57,050 | $45,489 | $46,849 |
| ID | $52,520 | $42,450 | $46,431 |
| MA | $62,500 | $49,594 | $45,819 |
| WV | $50,070 | $40,964 | $45,631 |
| MS | $48,970 | $39,661 | $45,434 |
| IA | $48,530 | $39,942 | $44,996 |
| MO | $49,560 | $40,609 | $44,255 |
| LA | $47,100 | $38,998 | $44,143 |
| GA | $52,030 | $41,989 | $43,422 |
| IN | $48,300 | $39,594 | $42,951 |
| UT | $50,770 | $40,714 | $42,856 |
| TN | $46,500 | $39,543 | $42,742 |
| FL | $51,590 | $43,633 | $42,177 |
| OH | $46,080 | $38,654 | $42,102 |
| MT | $45,160 | $37,100 | $41,111 |
| TX | $46,630 | $39,647 | $40,800 |
| PA | $48,290 | $39,499 | $40,511 |
| IL | $49,960 | $39,995 | $40,458 |
| OK | $43,120 | $35,387 | $40,082 |
| HI | $54,390 | $43,192 | $39,768 |
| NE | $43,240 | $35,659 | $39,457 |
| KY | $42,570 | $35,013 | $38,702 |
| AZ | $46,380 | $38,689 | $38,266 |
| AL | $41,500 | $33,755 | $37,518 |
| SC | $39,930 | $33,768 | $36,240 |
Sources and assumptions
- A median is the middle of the range, not a starting salary and not an offer. Half of this job earn less than the figures here and half earn more, and experience, employer and city move an individual a long way from the middle. Nationally the middle earns $60,280.
- One filer, no dependants, nothing paid into a pension before tax — that is the household behind every take-home figure for this job. It is the simplest case on purpose, so the states can be compared against each other rather than against each other's family circumstances. City income taxes are not counted. On that household, California keeps the most at $61,152.
- The price adjustment for this job uses a statewide figure, and states are not uniform. A city and a rural county in the same state can differ more from each other than two states do, so treat the real-terms comparison as a direction rather than a precise answer — South Carolina anchors the bottom at $36,240. The wage data and the price data also come from different years, because that is how each is published.
- Figures are medians of the published wage distribution for mental health and substance abuse social workers, not entry-level or offer wages. The national median is $60,280, with half of workers below it; dispersion within a state routinely exceeds the dispersion between states, driven by tenure, employer size, sector and metropolitan area. An individual's position in the distribution is not predictable from geography alone.
- The household modeled for mental health and substance abuse social workers is a single filer, standard deduction, no dependants, no pre-tax contributions. Holding the household constant is what makes the interstate comparison meaningful; it also means the absolute figures overstate liability for most real filers. On that basis California retains the most, $61,152. Municipal and school-district income taxes are not included in any state.
- Real-terms figures for mental health and substance abuse social workers deflate take-home by a statewide regional price parity, which conceals substantial intra-state variation — metropolitan and non-metropolitan price levels within one state frequently differ by more than two states differ from each other. The wage and price series also carry different reference periods, as each is published on its own schedule, so the adjustment is directionally sound rather than precisely dated.