School Psychologists
What the pay figures show
- A job board will not tell you this about school psychologists. The best headline number is California, at $127,780. State taxes differ, so Colorado leaves you more. Prices differ too, so New Mexico leaves you better off again — $91,155 once levelled out. Moving for the biggest salary can leave you worse off.
- Wage data for school psychologists places California first at $127,780. That position is not robust: state income tax alone reorders it to Colorado, and regional price parity reorders it again to New Mexico at $91,155. Because published comparisons almost universally stop at the nominal median, the state that appears best for this occupation is routinely not the state where a worker's income goes furthest.
Compare this career across states
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Pay by state · May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
National median
$95,990
People doing it
63,940
Highest paid
$127,780
CA
Best off, really
$91,155
NM, after tax and prices
Lowest tenth
$63,070
Highest tenth
$142,330
Lowest, really
$56,018
MS
States with data
51
National average
$99,160
mean, not median
Prices where it goes furthest
90.39%
NM, against a national 100
Where this job actually pays best
- Pay for this job roughly doubles depending on the state. That is a lot. Some of it is prices, because dear places pay more to make up for costing more. Most of it is not. In real money the range is still $56,018 to $91,155.
- This is a small job: about 63,940 people nationally. Fewer workers means each state figure is built on less data.
- No gaps here — all 51 jurisdictions publish a number for this job, which sits at $95,990 in the middle.
- Interstate variation in school psychologists pay approaches twofold nominally. The standard explanation — that high-wage states are merely high-cost states — is only partly supported here: after tax and price adjustment the range remains $56,018 to $91,155, so the majority of the gap represents a real difference in what the work buys.
- With 63,940 workers, school psychologists is among the smaller occupations BLS publishes. Treat single-state figures as indicative rather than precise; suppression and sampling error both bite harder at this scale.
- 51 jurisdictions report school psychologists, giving full coverage. The extremes quoted above are therefore the true reported maximum and minimum.
Pay band: School Psychologists
The national median for this job
50thpercentile, roughly
| Lowest tenth earn under | $63,070 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $95,990 |
| Top tenth earn over | $142,330 |
| This salary | $95,990 |
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 School Psychologists
The national median for this job
$95,990around the 50th percentile
| Lowest tenth | $63,070 |
|---|---|
| Middle | $95,990 |
| Top tenth | $142,330 |
The five points BLS publishes. Nothing between them is invented.
School Psychologists, state by state
The national median for this job
51states publish pay for this job
| Lowest | Mississippi · $61,070 |
|---|---|
| Highest | California · $127,780 |
| Spread | $66,710 |
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 | $83,690 |
|---|---|
| Worth, after local prices | $86,123 |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| NM | $110,360 | $82,392 | $91,155 |
| CO | $124,770 | $91,765 | $90,514 |
| CA | $127,780 | $90,812 | $80,664 |
| WA | $108,780 | $85,357 | $78,625 |
| MD | $109,700 | $81,069 | $77,977 |
| OH | $91,010 | $71,069 | $77,407 |
| NV | $93,680 | $74,734 | $77,061 |
| GA | $99,110 | $74,207 | $76,740 |
| NE | $88,980 | $68,082 | $75,332 |
| WY | $83,740 | $67,741 | $74,565 |
| AK | $94,460 | $75,283 | $74,013 |
| NY | $106,550 | $78,542 | $72,977 |
| SD | $78,370 | $63,963 | $72,607 |
| CT | $100,600 | $74,816 | $72,154 |
| DE | $95,990 | $71,255 | $71,791 |
| RI | $94,900 | $72,437 | $71,428 |
| OR | $106,070 | $74,719 | $71,351 |
| AZ | $92,380 | $71,912 | $71,126 |
| DC | $107,500 | $78,287 | $70,654 |
| TX | $83,690 | $67,706 | $69,674 |
| WI | $83,330 | $63,960 | $68,703 |
| MT | $80,010 | $61,957 | $68,655 |
| MI | $83,960 | $64,578 | $68,566 |
| MA | $98,670 | $73,631 | $68,027 |
| TN | $76,850 | $62,894 | $67,982 |
| IA | $74,410 | $58,962 | $66,423 |
| IN | $77,640 | $61,189 | $66,377 |
| FL | $84,760 | $68,459 | $66,174 |
| NJ | $95,160 | $71,903 | $66,037 |
| VT | $82,820 | $63,738 | $65,958 |
| WV | $75,220 | $59,191 | $65,935 |
| PA | $82,190 | $64,127 | $65,772 |
| KY | $75,370 | $59,332 | $65,584 |
| MN | $85,190 | $64,492 | $65,529 |
| IL | $84,690 | $64,362 | $65,108 |
| AL | $75,060 | $58,431 | $64,945 |
| ND | $68,960 | $57,258 | $64,646 |
| VA | $85,670 | $64,933 | $64,451 |
| SC | $76,720 | $60,031 | $64,427 |
| ME | $81,650 | $62,075 | $63,931 |
| UT | $77,820 | $60,113 | $63,276 |
| LA | $69,020 | $55,701 | $63,050 |
| KS | $73,020 | $56,414 | $62,706 |
| ID | $71,700 | $56,324 | $61,607 |
| NC | $73,220 | $57,928 | $61,534 |
| MO | $70,290 | $55,913 | $60,932 |
| AR | $64,030 | $51,718 | $59,784 |
| OK | $64,930 | $51,930 | $58,820 |
| NH | $73,490 | $60,530 | $57,459 |
| HI | $82,110 | $61,797 | $56,899 |
| MS | $61,070 | $48,899 | $56,018 |
Sources and assumptions
- These are middle-of-the-range figures for school psychologists, not what a new starter is offered. Half the people doing this job earn under $95,990 nationally, half over. Your own experience and employer will move you well away from that midpoint in either direction.
- One filer, no dependants, nothing paid into a pension before tax — that is the household behind every take-home figure for school psychologists. 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, Colorado keeps the most at $91,765.
- One price figure per state stands behind the real-terms numbers for school psychologists. Inside any state, a big city costs far more than a small town, so this is a fair way to compare states with each other and a poor way to price a specific move. The wage figures and the price figures are also from different years. At the bottom of the range sits Mississippi, on $56,018.
- All wage figures for school psychologists are medians rather than entry or offer rates; the national median is $95,990. Within-state dispersion typically exceeds between-state dispersion in this data, so an individual's expected wage is determined more by experience, sector and employer than by the state comparisons presented here.
- The household modeled for school psychologists 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 Colorado retains the most, $91,765. Municipal and school-district income taxes are not included in any state.
- Real-terms results for school psychologists rest on statewide regional price parities, which average over intra-state variation that is itself larger than much of the interstate variation. They support comparison between states and not the pricing of an individual relocation; Mississippi anchors the distribution at $56,018. Wage and price series are published on separate cycles and therefore carry different reference periods.