Therapist Salary in Delaware: Counselors, MFTs and Social Workers

The Delaware order matches the national one — family therapists highest, social workers next, counselors lowest — but each gap is wider.

The counselor median of $56,020 is $3,330 below the national $59,350; the family therapist median of $76,580 is $9,640 above the national $66,940; the social worker median of $60,060 is $220 below the national $60,280, a 0% gap on this page's whole-percent rounding.

Nationally, family therapists lead counselors by $7,590 at the median; in Delaware the lead is $20,560, or 37%.

Social workers lead counselors by $4,040 in Delaware against $930 nationally.

The one above-national median, the family therapist figure, is the one BLS estimates at only 400 workers, so the page flags it; the other two rows rest on 1,700 and 510.

The Delaware counselor distribution sits below the national one at every percentile, though the shortfall does not widen steadily: it runs 5% to 7% from the 10th percentile through the median, then 15% at the 75th and 17% at the 90th, widest at the ceiling.

The dollar gaps hold that shape: $2,000 below at the 10th percentile of $36,940, $3,340 below at the 25th of $43,760, $3,330 below at the median of $56,020, $11,740 below at the 75th of $64,790 and $16,880 below at the 90th of $80,710.

The middle half spans $21,030 against a national band of $29,430, and the 10th-to-90th span $43,770 against $58,650 — the Delaware spread is narrower at both ends.

The hourly median is $26.93 against $28.53 nationally, and BLS estimates 1,700 counselors employed in the state.

For someone weighing a counselor offer, the Delaware median of $56,020 is a lower benchmark than the national one, and the Delaware ceiling of $80,710 is lower too.

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

The Delaware family therapist median of $76,580 is the one median in this set that sits above its national counterpart — 14% above the national $66,940 — and it ranks 8th of the 45 jurisdictions that publish a median for the occupation.

It is also the row BLS estimates at only 400 workers in Delaware, so the page flags it small-sample, and this section quotes the median and hourly median only, leaving the percentiles to the flagged table underneath.

The hourly median is $36.82 against a national $32.18, also 14% above.

What a sample this size does to the reliability of the figure, OEWS does not say, and this page does not guess; read it as the middle of a small count rather than with the confidence the larger counselor and social worker rows support.

At the median this is the closest row to its national figure: $60,060 against $60,280, a $220 gap that rounds to 0%.

The tails cross over, though.

The 10th percentile of $47,550 is 20% above the national figure and the 25th percentile of $51,230 is 9% above, while the 75th percentile of $68,090 is 15% below and the 90th percentile of $81,210 is 22% below the national $104,170.

The lower half of the Delaware distribution sits above its national counterpart and the upper half below it, which compresses the middle half to $16,860 — roughly half the national band of $32,660.

The hourly median is $28.88 against $28.98.

BLS estimates 510 employed, and the median ranks 21st of the 51 jurisdictions that publish the occupation.

For a social work offer here, where the offer lands in the distribution says more than the median does.

Start with the occupation a job would be counted in, then compare it against that row rather than a blended figure.

The Delaware hourly medians are $26.93 for counselors, $36.82 for family therapists and $28.88 for mental health and substance abuse social workers.

An annual offer of $56,020 sits at the counselor median, $20,560 below the family therapist median and $4,040 below the social worker median, so the same dollar figure means three different things depending on the row.

Hourly postings read the same way: $28.88 an hour is even with the social worker median and $7.94 below the family therapist hourly figure, the row with only 400 workers behind it.

And a percentile is a position in the state's distribution, not a step on a career ladder — an offer at the 25th percentile describes where it lands among Delaware jobs in that occupation, nothing more.

None of the three rows is a licence figure.

The counselor row pools LPCMHs and LACMHs with substance abuse and behavioral disorder counselors, and BLS publishes no LPCMH-only median for Delaware.

The family therapist row is the closest to a single licence — Delaware licenses marriage and family therapists as the LMFT, with an LAMFT tier before it — but OEWS does not split the row by licence stage, so it cannot say what an LAMFT earns separately from an LMFT.

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 $60,060 median does not describe every LCSW.

The licensure pages linked below cover what each Delaware title requires; this page only shows which row each figure does and does not describe.

One caveat sits under this page's standout number.

BLS estimates 400 marriage and family therapists employed in Delaware, under the 500 threshold the page uses to flag an occupation's table as small-sample.

A median drawn from a count that size is more fragile than the counselor row's at 1,700 or the social worker row's at 510.

This page therefore builds no statement on the family therapist percentiles: every family therapist figure in the prose above is the median, the hourly median or the employment count, and the full percentile table underneath carries the flag where it belongs.