Therapist Salary in Connecticut: Counselors, MFTs and Social Workers

Set against their own national figures, the three Connecticut medians all point the same way, but not by the same amount.

The counselor median of $63,590 is $4,240 above the national $59,350, while the social worker median of $78,640 is $18,360 above the national $60,280 and the family therapist median of $86,250 is $19,310 above the national $66,940.

The order matches the national one — family therapists highest, counselors lowest — but the spacing does not.

Nationally the counselor and social worker medians sit $930 apart; in Connecticut $15,050 separate them, and the national family therapist lead over counselors of $7,590 widens to $22,660.

The gap between family therapists and social workers, by contrast, is close in both places: $7,610 against $6,660 nationally.

The counselor row is the one that sits relatively low.

Connecticut's counselor row sits above the national distribution at every percentile, by uneven amounts.

The 10th percentile of $44,080 is 13% above the national $38,940, the widest gap in the row; the 25th percentile of $49,250 is 5% above; the median of $63,590 is 7% above the national $59,350; the 75th percentile of $80,040 is 5% above the national $76,530; and the 90th percentile of $99,540 is 2% above the national $97,590, the narrowest gap.

The middle half spans $30,790, slightly wider than the national band of $29,430, while the 10th-to-90th span of $55,460 is narrower than the national $58,650 — Connecticut's floor sits $5,140 above the national floor while its ceiling is only $1,950 above the national ceiling.

BLS ranks Connecticut 10th of the 51 jurisdictions that publish a median for this occupation.

For someone weighing a counselor offer, the Connecticut row is the higher benchmark at every percentile, though the margin shrinks toward the top.

This is a combined occupation, so the figures describe every kind of counselor it pools, not one licence.

The Connecticut family therapist median of $86,250 is the highest of the three, $19,310 above the national $66,940 — a 29% gap — and the hourly median of $41.47 runs $9.29 above the national $32.18.

By median, Connecticut ranks 5th of the 45 jurisdictions where BLS publishes an estimate for this occupation.

Read the figure with its sample in mind: BLS estimates only 260 marriage and family therapists employed in Connecticut, which is why the page flags this row as a small sample and this section quotes the median alone.

The percentiles in the table above come from the same estimate, and a small sample swings widely, so they should not be read as a ladder of typical pay.

OEWS does not say why the median sits 29% above the national one, and this page does not guess.

Mental health and substance abuse social workers show the widest Connecticut premium of the three, and like the counselors' it is concentrated below the ceiling.

The 10th percentile of $49,260 is 24% above the national $39,740, and the 25th percentile of $62,300 is 32% above — the widest gap this occupation shows against national at any percentile — while the median of $78,640 is 30% above the national $60,280.

Toward the top the gap narrows: the 75th percentile of $92,430 is 16% above the national $79,730, and the 90th percentile of $108,530 is only 4% above the national $104,170.

The middle half spans $30,130, slightly tighter than the national band of $32,660.

BLS estimates 1,540 employed in Connecticut and ranks the state 26th of the 50 jurisdictions that publish an employment estimate for this occupation, and 3rd of the 51 by median.

An offer near the Connecticut median is being measured against a benchmark 30% above the national one, but the state ceiling is close to the national figure.

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

The Connecticut hourly medians are $30.57 for counselors, $41.47 for marriage and family therapists and $37.81 for mental health and substance abuse social workers, against national hourly medians of $28.53, $32.18 and $28.98.

A counselor offer at $63,590 sits at the Connecticut counselor median; the same figure would sit $22,660 below the state's family therapist median and $15,050 below its social worker median, so the occupation a posting names changes what the number means.

An offer at the 25th percentile of an occupation says where it sits within that Connecticut distribution — a position in the state distribution, not a judgement about experience or the person hired.

None of the three rows is a licence figure.

The counselor row pools licensed professional counselors (LPCs) and professional counselor associates with substance abuse and behavioral disorder counselors, and BLS publishes no LPC-only median for Connecticut.

The family therapist row is the closest to a single licence — Connecticut licenses marriage and family therapists as the LMFT, with a marital and family therapist associate licence beneath it — but OEWS does not split the occupation by licence stage, so it cannot say what an associate earns.

Clinical social workers holding the LCSW are counted either in this social worker row or in healthcare social work, depending on the setting, so the $78,640 median does not describe every LCSW.

Connecticut's master's-level LMSW, licensed to practice clinical social work under supervision, may be counted in this row as well, so the median is not a licence-stage figure for that tier either.

One of this page's three rows rests on a small employment estimate.

BLS estimates 260 marriage and family therapists employed in Connecticut, which is under the threshold at which the page flags a row as a small sample.

The amber note on that table is about this: percentiles from a small sample swing widely, so the analysis quotes this occupation's median, hourly median and employment only, and builds nothing on its 10th, 25th, 75th or 90th percentile figures, even though the table prints them.

The counselor row, at an estimated 7,540, and the social worker row, at 1,540, carry no small-sample flag.