Mental Health and Substance Abuse Social Workers in Maine
May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
You keep
$45,489
after federal, FICA and Maine tax
Tax takes
$11,561
20.3% of the whole
Worth, in national money
$46,849
Maine costs less than average
On that salary you would be around the 25th percentile for this work in Maine — roughly, since only five points along the band are published.
One filer, standard deduction, no dependants and nothing paid in before tax — the same household the rest of this page uses, so the comparison holds. City and school-district income taxes are not included.
Median here
$57,050
Kept after tax
$45,489
Worth in national money
$46,849
State rank
25
of 51 states
What this pays, and what it is worth
- Middling, nationally. Maine pays this job around $57,050 at the midpoint, 25 of 51 states. The interesting numbers on this page are the two below it.
- Ordinary, locally speaking. This job ranks 268 among 484 occupations Maine publishes pay for.
- Cost of living is unremarkable here. From $57,050, tax leaves $45,489, and adjusting for local prices barely moves it — about $46,849 in comparable terms. Averages run higher here, $64,330, since top earners drag the number up.
- For mental health and substance abuse social workers the Maine median is $57,050, ranking 25 of 51 states reporting. Mid-band nominal positions are the ones most frequently reordered by the adjustments, because no large wage premium exists to absorb a state's tax or price level.
- Position 268 of 484 in Maine places mental health and substance abuse social workers in the middle of the state's wage distribution. Because within-state and cross-state rankings measure different things, this figure and the national one above should be read together rather than as a single verdict.
- Because Maine sits close to the national price level, the real-terms figure for mental health and substance abuse social workers — median $57,050 — tracks the post-tax figure closely: $45,489 retained, $46,849 adjusted. ⚠️ Neither is a wage; the second describes what the first buys. Mean pay of $64,330 exceeds the median, so the upper tail is doing the work.
Compare this career across states
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Pay band: Mental Health and Substance Abuse Social Workers
The state median for this job
| Lowest tenth earn under | $45,870 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $57,050 |
| Top tenth earn over | $96,370 |
| This salary | $57,050 |
Positions between the published tenth, quarter, half, three-quarter and ninetieth points are estimated by straight line.
The same pay, somewhere else
The state median for this job
| Take-home in Maine | $45,489 |
|---|---|
| Take-home in Texas | $48,020 |
| Once local prices are leveledBEA price parity | +$2,567 |
State income tax and state price levels only. No city income tax, and no housing market.
What you would need there
The state median for this job
| To match take-home only | $53,900 |
|---|---|
| You could take a cut of | −$3,104 |
| Prices in Texas | 97 vs 97 |
State taxes and state price levels only. No city tax, and no housing market.
Sources and assumptions
- Treat $57,050 as a midpoint for Maine, not a promise. The tenth percentile is $45,870 and the ninetieth is $96,370 — a wide band, and where you land in it depends on far more than the state.
- That $45,489 take-home in Maine comes from $57,050. It is the no-frills case: single filer, standard deduction, nothing set aside before tax. Real circumstances almost always reduce the tax. City and school-district taxes are not counted at all. Locally the work ranks 268 of 484.
- Two cautions on $46,849, the adjusted value of that $57,050 median. It levels out prices with a single number for all of Maine. No actual address matches that. The wage figures and price figures are also from different years. Each is published on its own timetable. This work sits at 268 of 484 locally.
- The Maine median of $57,050 describes the midpoint of a distribution spanning $45,870 to $96,370. Because that spread is typically larger than the interstate spread, a state median is a weak predictor for any individual worker in this occupation.
- Retained pay of $45,489, from $57,050, assumes a single Maine filer with the standard deduction and no elective deferrals. Pre-tax retirement or HSA contributions, dependants and itemized deductions all reduce it further; local income taxes, excluded here, would increase it in the states that levy them. This occupation ranks 268 of 484 locally, and the state ranks 25 of 51 for it.
- This $46,849 adjusted figure, worked from $57,050, rests on a state-level price parity averaging over within-state dispersion larger than much of the between-state dispersion. Wage and price vintages differ by publication schedule. The result is directionally sound and not address-specific, for work at 268 of 484 in the state. The occupation ranks 268 of 484 locally.
Questions people ask
Is this the average pay for the job?
It is the midpoint, not the average. The average here is $64,330, dragged up by high earners; the middle figure describes a typical worker better.
Why is the pay range for this job so wide?
Because one job title covers very different work. The bottom tenth here earn $45,870 and the top tenth $96,370 — experience, employer and specialism separate them, and a single figure hides all three.
What does this pay actually buy where I live?
A smaller wage in a cheaper place is not automatically less. Adjusted for local prices, this is worth $46,849.
Where does the difference between the wage and my paycheck go?
Into four separate taxes, not one. Federal income tax, Social Security and Medicare apply everywhere, and Maine adds its own income tax on top — which is why $45,489 of this wage survives to your account.
Can I compare this job across every state?
This occupation is published everywhere — all 51 of them — so comparing states measures real differences rather than gaps in the data.
How does the published median differ from the mean for this occupation?
The median is the midpoint of the distribution; the mean for this occupation in Maine is $64,330. Wage distributions are right-skewed, so the mean exceeds the median wherever a minority earn substantially more. BLS publishes both because substituting one for the other misstates a typical worker's pay.
What drives the percentile dispersion in this occupation?
Dispersion between the tenth percentile ($45,870) and the ninetieth ($96,370) exceeds the family median dispersion. SOC codes aggregate roles differing in seniority, industry and specialisation, and BLS does not disaggregate below the detailed occupation level, so within-title variance is not separable from the published series.
What is this occupation's price-adjusted compensation in this state?
Maine's regional price parity is at or below the national average, so nominal wages understate purchasing power. Take-home deflated by the state price level is $46,849 in national-average terms. The adjustment uses an all-items index and does not isolate housing.
What accounts for the gap between gross wage and take-home here?
Take-home of $45,489 reflects federal income tax, OASDI, Medicare and Maine income tax for a single filer with no adjustments. The state layer is levied in addition to the federal one; only its rate and base differ between states.
Is this occupation's state coverage complete?
State-level estimates are published for all 51 jurisdictions for this occupation, so cross-state comparison is not confounded by suppression. ⚠️ Estimates remain survey-based and carry sampling error; small differences between adjacent states should not be over-read.