Therapist Salary in Arizona: Counselors, MFTs and Social Workers

Arizona's three medians split into a pair and an outlier.

The counselor median of $65,300 and the marriage and family therapist median of $65,290 are $10 apart; the mental health and substance abuse social worker median of $46,380 sits $18,920 below the counselor figure.

Each occupation also sits differently against its own national median: counselors 10% above the national $59,350, family therapists 2% below the national $66,940, social workers 23% below the national $60,280.

The national order does not survive the trip.

Nationally the social worker median of $60,280 sits $930 above the national counselor median of $59,350; in Arizona it sits $18,920 below the state counselor median of $65,300.

And the national family therapist lead over counselors, $7,590 at the median, vanishes — the Arizona counselor median is $10 higher.

Any single Arizona figure for therapists would sit right for two of the three occupations and $18,920 off for the third.

The Arizona counselor distribution sits above the national one through its lower and middle range, and the advantage narrows as pay rises.

The 10th percentile of $44,520 is 14% above the national figure and the 25th percentile of $51,510 is 9% above; the median of $65,300 is $5,950, or 10%, above the national $59,350.

At the 75th percentile the gap is $1,580, or 2%, and at the 90th it flips: $95,210 is 2% below the national $97,590.

So the ceiling is the one point where Arizona does not run ahead.

The middle half spans $26,600, tighter than the national $29,430, and the 10th-to-90th span is $50,690 against $58,650.

BLS estimates 9,990 counselors employed in Arizona, ranking 16th of the 50 jurisdictions that publish an employment estimate for this occupation, and the median ranks 6th of 51.

For anyone weighing a counselor offer, both the median and the floor sit above their national benchmarks; this is a combined occupation, so the figures describe every kind of counselor it pools, not one licence.

Arizona marriage and family therapists had a median of $65,290 — $1,650, or 2%, below the national median of $66,940.

The hourly median is $31.39 against $32.18 nationally, and the state median ranks 19th of the 45 jurisdictions that publish a median for this occupation.

This section is deliberately short: BLS does not publish an employment estimate for Arizona in this occupation, so the page flags the row as a small sample and this analysis quotes the median only, not the percentiles.

The one published figure puts an Arizona family therapist median within 2% of the national figure — close to the counselor median it sits $10 under, though that counselor figure describes a blended occupation, not this licence.

Mental health and substance abuse social workers are the one Arizona occupation clearly below its national median: $46,380 against $60,280, a gap of $13,900, or 23%.

The gap widens up the distribution — the 75th percentile of $54,480 is 32% below the national $79,730, and the 90th percentile of $64,350 is 38% below the national $104,170 — while the floor runs the other way: the 10th percentile of $40,810 is 3% above the national figure.

The distribution is compressed: the middle half spans $9,470 against a national band of $32,660, and the 10th-to-90th span is $23,540 against $64,430.

BLS estimates 3,690 employed in Arizona, the count tied for 8th-largest of the 50 jurisdictions that publish an employment estimate for this occupation, and the median ranks 44th of 51.

Read against this row, the middle half of Arizona jobs in the occupation falls between $45,010 and $54,480.

Start with the occupation the job would be counted in, and read the offer against that row rather than a blended number.

The Arizona hourly medians are $31.39 for counselors and $31.39 for marriage and family therapists — identical to the cent — against $22.30 for mental health and substance abuse social workers.

A salary at the counselor median of $65,300 would sit $18,920 above the social worker median of $46,380 if the same figure were offered in that occupation, and $10 above the family therapist median of $65,290.

Compare hourly postings the same way: $22.30 is 23% below the national social worker hourly median of $28.98, while $31.39 is 10% above the national counselor figure of $28.53.

A percentile is a position in the state distribution, not a pay step, so an offer at the 25th percentile says where it sits among Arizona jobs in that occupation, not a judgement about the person hired.

None of the three rows is a licence figure.

The counselor row pools LPCs and LACs — Arizona's Licensed Associate Counselor is the entry licence — with substance abuse and behavioral disorder counselors, and BLS publishes no LPC-only median for Arizona.

The family therapist row is the closest of the three to a single licence, an occupation of its own for marriage and family therapists, whom Arizona licenses as the LMFT with an associate marriage and family therapist licence below it, but OEWS does not split the row by licence stage, so it cannot say what an associate marriage and family therapist earns.

On the social work side, Arizona licenses social workers at the LBSW, LMSW and LCSW tiers; the LCSWs among them are counted either in this social worker row or in healthcare social work, depending on the setting, so the $46,380 median does not describe every Arizona LCSW.

The marriage and family therapist row is the reason this page carries a data caveat: BLS does not publish an employment estimate for Arizona in that occupation for May 2025.

The page flags the row, and this analysis quotes only its median and hourly median — $65,290 and $31.39 — never its percentiles, because the page treats any row without a published employment estimate as too thin to quote percentiles from.

The counselor row (9,990 employed) and the social worker row (3,690) both carry published employment estimates, so their full percentile tables stand as printed.