Substance Abuse, Behavioral Disorder, and Mental Health Counselors in Texas
May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
You keep
$52,503
after federal, FICA and Texas tax
Tax takes
$10,127
16.2% of the whole
Worth, in national money
$54,030
Texas costs less than average
On that salary you would be around the 25th percentile for this work in Texas — 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
$62,630
Kept after tax
$52,503
Worth in national money
$54,030
State rank
14
of 51 states
What this pays, and what it is worth
- Texas is one of the better-paying states for this job. The middle earner takes $62,630, which ranks 14 of 51 states with published figures. That is about 5.53% above the national middle.
- Middle of the local pack. Of 493 occupations Texas reports figures for, this is number 189.
- Cost of living is unremarkable here. From $62,630, tax leaves $52,503, and adjusting for local prices barely moves it — about $54,030 in comparable terms. Averages run higher here, $65,180, since top earners drag the number up.
- Texas ranks 14 of 51 states publishing a median for substance abuse, behavioral disorder, and mental health counselors, at $62,630 — about 5.53% 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.
- In Texas's occupational distribution, substance abuse, behavioral disorder, and mental health counselors sits at 189 of 493 — neither quartile. This local position is what a resident compares against, and it is determined by the state's own labor market rather than by national patterns for this occupation.
- Because Texas sits close to the national price level, the real-terms figure for substance abuse, behavioral disorder, and mental health counselors — median $62,630 — tracks the post-tax figure closely: $52,503 retained, $54,030 adjusted. ⚠️ Neither is a wage; the second describes what the first buys. Mean pay of $65,180 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 | $37,650 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $62,630 |
| Top tenth earn over | $95,910 |
| This salary | $62,630 |
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 Texas | $52,503 |
|---|---|
| Take-home in Florida | $52,503 |
| Once local prices are leveledBEA price parity | −$3,278 |
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 | $62,630 |
|---|---|
| Raise you would need | +$4,271 |
| Prices in Florida | 103 vs 97 |
State taxes and state price levels only. No city tax, and no housing market.
Sources and assumptions
- Treat $62,630 as a midpoint for Texas, not a promise. The tenth percentile is $37,650 and the ninetieth is $95,910 — a wide band, and where you land in it depends on far more than the state.
- That $52,503 take-home in Texas comes from $62,630. 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 189 of 493.
- One number stands for prices across all of Texas, which is a simplification — big cities cost far more than small towns. Read $54,030, the adjusted value of that $62,630 median, as a way to compare states fairly, not as a quote for any particular place. The two datasets are also from different years. This job sits at 189 of 493 in the state.
- The Texas median of $62,630 describes the midpoint of a distribution spanning $37,650 to $95,910. 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 $52,503, from $62,630, assumes a single Texas 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 189 of 493 locally, and the state ranks 14 of 51 for it.
- Price deflation uses one statewide parity for Texas, so $54,030 — the adjusted value of that $62,630 median — establishes comparability between states rather than accuracy within one. The wage and parity series are dated independently, each following its own publication cycle, and neither is projected forward. This occupation sits at 189 of 493 locally.
Questions people ask
Is this the average pay for the job?
Half earn more than this and half earn less. The average sits at $65,180 because a long tail of high pay lifts it, so the two answer different questions.
Why is the pay range for this job so wide?
One title, many jobs. The lowest tenth take $37,650, the highest tenth $95,910, and what separates them is experience, employer and what exactly the role does.
What does this pay actually buy where I live?
More than the figure suggests. Prices in Texas sit below the national level, so take-home here stretches like $54,030 would elsewhere. The wage is the same; the ground it covers is larger.
Is most of this wage taxed away?
Less than people assume. $52,503 of this wage reaches your account, because Texas 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 Texas is $65,180. 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 ($37,650) and the ninetieth ($95,910) 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?
Texas'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 $54,030 in national-average terms. The adjustment uses an all-items index and does not isolate housing.
Why is the take-home ratio comparatively high in this state?
Texas levies no personal income tax on wages, so take-home of $52,503 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.