Substance Abuse, Behavioral Disorder, and Mental Health Counselors in Alaska
May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
You keep
$65,652
after federal, FICA and Alaska tax
Tax takes
$15,118
18.7% of the whole
Worth, in national money
$64,545
Alaska costs more than average
On that salary you would be around the 25th percentile for this work in Alaska — 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
$80,770
Kept after tax
$65,652
Worth in national money
$64,545
State rank
1
of 51 states
What this pays, and what it is worth
- Alaska is one of the better-paying states for this job. The middle earner takes $80,770, which ranks 1 of 51 states with published figures. That is about 36.09% above the national middle.
- Against other work in Alaska, this sits in the middle: 143 of 430 occupations with published pay. Solidly ordinary for the state, which is not the same as ordinary nationally.
- Cost of living is unremarkable here. From $80,770, tax leaves $65,652, and adjusting for local prices barely moves it — about $64,545 in comparable terms. Averages run higher here, $86,500, since top earners drag the number up.
- Alaska ranks 1 of 51 states publishing a median for substance abuse, behavioral disorder, and mental health counselors, at $80,770 — about 36.09% above the national median. A state's position on nominal pay is the figure wage tables report and the least informative of the three on this page, because it survives neither the tax adjustment nor the price adjustment intact for most occupations.
- Substance abuse, behavioral disorder, and mental health counselors ranks 143 of 430 occupations in Alaska by median pay, in the middle bands. Within-state and national positions are separate measurements and a job commonly sits in different quartiles on each.
- Because Alaska sits close to the national price level, the real-terms figure for substance abuse, behavioral disorder, and mental health counselors — median $80,770 — tracks the post-tax figure closely: $65,652 retained, $64,545 adjusted. ⚠️ Neither is a wage; the second describes what the first buys. Mean pay of $86,500 exceeds the median, so the upper tail is doing the work.
Compare this career across states
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Pay band: Substance Abuse, Behavioral Disorder, and Mental Health Counselors
The state median for this job
| Lowest tenth earn under | $58,240 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $80,770 |
| Top tenth earn over | $114,650 |
| This salary | $80,770 |
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 Alaska | $65,652 |
|---|---|
| Take-home in Texas | $65,652 |
| Once local prices are leveledBEA price parity | +$3,016 |
The raise and the real gain point in opposite directions here.
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 | $80,770 |
|---|---|
| You could take a cut of | −$4,165 |
| Prices in Texas | 97 vs 102 |
State taxes and state price levels only. No city tax, and no housing market.
Sources and assumptions
- Half the people doing this work in Alaska earn less than $80,770. The published range is $58,240 up to $114,650, so an individual figure can sit a long way from the middle in either direction.
- That $65,652 take-home in Alaska comes from $80,770. 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 143 of 430.
- Two cautions on $64,545, the adjusted value of that $80,770 median. It levels out prices with a single number for all of Alaska. 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 143 of 430 locally.
- Reported values are medians; for substance abuse, behavioral disorder, and mental health counselors in Alaska the tenth-to-ninetieth percentile band is $58,240 to $114,650. Neither the median nor the band is an offer rate, and neither accounts for hours, shift differentials or overtime.
- Retained pay of $65,652, from $80,770, assumes a single Alaska 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 143 of 430 locally, and the state ranks 1 of 51 for it.
- This $64,545 adjusted figure, worked from $80,770, 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 143 of 430 in the state. The occupation ranks 143 of 430 locally.
Questions people ask
Is this the average pay for the job?
No — it is the middle. Half of these workers earn more and half earn less. The average is $86,500, pulled upward by the top of the range, which is why the middle is the fairer number to plan against.
How much does pay for this job actually vary?
Most of these jobs pay within a close range — $58,240 at the tenth percentile, $114,650 at the ninetieth.
Does a bigger number here mean I am better off?
The number and the value are different things. Alaska costs more than the national average, so this take-home stretches like $64,545 rather than its face figure.
Is most of this wage taxed away?
Less than people assume. $65,652 of this wage reaches your account, because Alaska takes no income tax from wages — but federal tax, Social Security and Medicare still apply exactly as they do everywhere else.
Can I compare this job across every state?
All 51 jurisdictions report this work, which makes the ranking a like-for-like one.
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 Alaska is $86,500. 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 is the dispersion of this occupation's wage distribution?
The tenth-to-ninetieth percentile span ($58,240 to $114,650) sits at or below the family's median dispersion, indicating relatively standardized compensation. Percentiles are published per state, so this dispersion is specific to Alaska rather than a national figure.
How does the state price level affect real compensation?
Alaska's regional price parity sits above the national average, so nominal wages overstate purchasing power. Deflating take-home by the state price level gives $64,545 in national-average terms. ⚠️ RPPs are an all-items index; housing parities vary far more widely than the headline figure.
Why is the take-home ratio comparatively high in this state?
Alaska levies no personal income tax on wages, so take-home of $65,652 reflects the federal layer and FICA alone. Federal income tax and FICA are unchanged; states without a wage income tax generally recover revenue through consumption and property bases instead.
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.