How Much Do Clinical Psychologists Make? What the $100,580 Covers

The federal wage series for this role reported a median of $100,580 for May 2025 — BLS OEWS SOC 19-3033, clinical and counseling psychologists, one combined occupation.

The middle 50 percent earn between $73,210 and $135,200, with a 10th percentile of $55,170, a 90th of $180,960, and 75,990 jobs in the estimate.

The headline number is real, published, and — the part most pages leave out — a measurement of two professions at once.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics keeps clinical psychologists and counseling psychologists in a single occupation, surveyed and published as one table.

There is no clinical-only split anywhere in the release, so every figure on this page describes counseling psychologists too: in federal data, the counseling psychologist salary and the clinical psychologist salary are the same table, and the data cannot say which title pulls the median up or down.

Quoting it as "the clinical psychologist salary" is the pooled figure wearing one title — the same honesty problem as the counselor wage table, which O*NET republishes under two separate occupation pages, as set out on the mental health counselor salary page.

This series is at least named honestly: "clinical and counseling" is in its own title.

The neighbour that must not be blended in is SOC 19-3039, "Psychologists, all other" — median $110,840 across 18,820 jobs, published separately in the same release.

It is a different occupation, not a clinical-psychology figure, and averaging it with 19-3033 produces a number no dataset supports.

Pages that want a higher "psychologist salary" sometimes do exactly that; the two series are kept apart here.

Clinical, counseling, school and child psychologists.

The psychology specializations do not map one-to-one onto federal series.

Clinical and counseling psychologists share 19-3033.

School psychologists are a separate occupation, SOC 19-3034, and this page does not quote a national school psychologist salary; the one comparison it can make is inside a single industry, where BLS estimates 1,100 school psychologists in offices of mental health practitioners at an $82,190 median, against $98,940 for 19-3033 in the same industry.

That is an industry row, not a national school psychology figure.

Child psychologists have no series of their own: a clinician who specializes in children is counted within 19-3033.

The shape of the distribution says more than the median.

The middle 50 percent spans $61,990 — wider than the counselors' entire 10th-to-90th spread of $58,650 — and the full run from the 10th to the 90th percentile covers $125,790.

Against the three master's-level therapy occupations, every percentile sits higher: the 10th is $16,230 above the counselors' 10th, the median $41,230 above theirs, and the 90th $83,370 above.

The floor lifts, but the ceiling lifts most.

Position within the same release keeps the number honest in both directions.

Psychiatrists — the physician tier — reported a median of $281,870, $181,290 higher.

But two neighbours the role is often measured against sit above the psychologist median too: nurse practitioners at $132,300 (all specialties, not only psychiatric) and medical and health services managers at $123,860 — $31,720 and $23,280 above respectively.

Below sits the entire master's-level therapy block: marriage and family therapists at $66,940, mental health and substance abuse social workers at $60,280, the combined counselor occupation at $59,350 — $33,640, $40,300 and $41,230 below in that order.

The all-occupations median is $50,980, so the figure at the top of this page is just under twice the all-industry middle.

Pay by work setting.

The three setting cards above are medians for SOC 19-3033 only, from the BLS OEWS May 2025 industry-specific estimates, which cover employees and exclude the self-employed.

The three behavioral-health industries together hold about 37,050 of the occupation's 75,990 jobs, so under half; the rest work in industries not shown here.

Offices of mental health practitioners carry the largest share and the widest spread, with a 90th percentile of $201,230, above the national 90th.

Residential facilities sit $23,990 below the occupation's national median.

These are positions in the data, not causes: the release does not say why one setting pays more.

Pay by experience and by degree.

BLS publishes no split by years of experience and none by degree, so any table of clinical psychologist salaries by experience level or by degree has no federal source behind it.

A percentile is a position in the wage distribution, not a pay step or an experience level: the 25th percentile is not "entry-level pay" and the 90th is not "senior pay".

What the release does publish are the percentiles, the setting cards, and the state pages below — the honest stand-ins.

It also cannot show a PhD-versus-PsyD gap (covered on PhD vs PsyD in clinical psychology) or a gap between doctoral psychologists and the master's-level practitioners licensed in some states (see master's-level psychology licenses).

What the release cannot say.

The national series is cross-industry, and the industry-specific estimates in the setting cards cover employees only — the self-employed are excluded, so psychologists who own an independent private practice are outside every figure on this page.

Nothing in the data separates forensic or school-contract work either.

And OEWS measures wages and employment, not causes: where a gap appears, the data does not say why.

One structural fact sits behind the whole distribution: the licence is doctoral-entry in most states — a PhD or PsyD, a predoctoral internship matched through APPIC, the EPPP, and in 30 of 51 jurisdictions a postdoctoral year on top, as the rules are currently written.

That is a longer runway than any master's-level therapy licence requires, and the steps are laid out in how to become a clinical psychologist.

Setting the training table and the wage table side by side is not a cause-and-effect claim — it is the two federal records of the same profession, printed together.

State licensure rules differ too, state by state, in the psychologist licensure requirements by state series.

Salary by state.

The same release surveyed this occupation state by state: 48 of the 51 jurisdictions have a published median, and Connecticut, Maine, and Maryland have none.

Each of the 48 has its own page in the state table below.

Oregon ranks first at $134,350 on an estimated 540 jobs — see clinical psychologist salary in Oregon — followed by New Jersey at $127,090 and New Mexico at $124,800, a state with no published employment estimate.

The two largest employment bases sit above the national median as well: California at $116,000 on 12,840 jobs and New York at $114,400 on 8,420.

At the other end, New Hampshire's median is $64,270.

This page carries no city or metro figures for the occupation; the state pages are the finest geography it uses.

For what the role actually is — the doctoral licence in most states, the testing scope that defines it, and the seven operative prescribing pathways — see what does a clinical psychologist do?

Open roles sit on the clinical psychologist job board.

This page is career information, not legal, clinical, or medical advice, and it is not guidance for anyone seeking treatment. Wage figures come from the federal statistical system and licensure from state psychology boards — confirm current requirements and data with the primary sources before relying on them.