Therapist Salary in Missouri: Counselors, MFTs and Social Workers

Set against their own national figures, the three Missouri medians all sit below, and by different amounts.

The counselor median of $56,910 is $2,440 below the national $59,350; the family therapist median of $60,440 is $6,500 below the national $66,940; the social worker median of $49,560 is $10,720 below the national $60,280.

The national order does not survive.

Nationally, social workers lead counselors by $930 at the median; in Missouri, counselors lead social workers by $7,350, so the bottom two occupations swap places.

The national family therapist premium over counselors, $7,590 at the median, narrows to $3,530 in Missouri but holds — family therapists stay first in both.

One caution belongs up front: the family therapist row rests on the smallest employment estimate of the three, so the small-sample section below takes it up before any conclusion rests on it.

The Missouri counselor distribution tracks its national counterpart most closely at the bottom and furthest at the top.

The 10th percentile of $37,650 is 3% below the national $38,940, a gap of $1,290; the 25th percentile of $44,140 is 6% below the national $47,100; the median of $56,910 is 4% below the national $59,350; the 75th percentile of $72,280 is 6% below the national $76,530; and the 90th percentile of $89,400 is 8% below the national $97,590, a gap of $8,190.

The shortfall is not steady: the 25th-percentile gap, $2,960, is wider than the median gap of $2,440.

The middle half spans $28,140, against a national band of $29,430, and the 10th-to-90th span is $51,750 against $58,650.

For an offer, the Missouri median is a benchmark $2,440 under its national counterpart.

BLS estimates 8,130 counselors employed in Missouri; by median, Missouri ranks 36th of the 51 jurisdictions that publish one, and by employment 22nd of the 50 that publish an estimate.

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

Marriage and family therapists have the highest of Missouri's three medians: $60,440, $6,500 below the national median of $66,940, a 10% difference.

The hourly median is $29.06 against $32.18 nationally, also 10% below the national hourly median.

This is also the thinnest row on the page.

BLS estimates 390 family therapists employed in Missouri, so the table carries a small-sample flag and this analysis quotes only the median and hourly median from the row — no percentile, span or tail claim rests on 390 jobs.

By median, Missouri ranks 27th of the 45 jurisdictions that publish one for this occupation; by employment, 21st of the 40 that publish an estimate.

OEWS offers no reason the median sits below its national counterpart, and this page does not guess.

Mental health and substance abuse social workers show the widest Missouri shortfall of the three, and it grows with the percentile.

The 10th percentile of $38,610 is 3% below the national $39,740, a gap of $1,130; the 25th percentile of $43,350 is 8% below the national $47,070; the median of $49,560 is 18% below the national $60,280, a gap of $10,720; the 75th percentile of $59,200 is 26% below the national $79,730; and the 90th percentile of $72,800 is 30% below the national $104,170, a gap of $31,370.

The middle half spans $15,850 against a national band of $32,660, and the 10th-to-90th span is $34,190 against $64,430 — the upper half of the Missouri distribution is where the gap concentrates.

BLS estimates 1,640 social workers employed in Missouri; by median, Missouri ranks 35th of the 51 jurisdictions that publish one, and by employment, tied for 23rd of the 50 that publish an estimate.

A social work offer read against the national median is read against a figure $10,720 above the Missouri median.

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

The Missouri hourly medians are $27.36 for counselors, $29.06 for family therapists and $23.83 for social workers, which is where an hourly posting reads most directly.

At the annual medians the same dollar figure reads differently by row: an offer of $56,910 sits at the counselor median, $7,350 above the Missouri social worker median and $3,530 below the Missouri family therapist median.

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

None of the three rows is a licence figure.

The counselor row pools Missouri's LPCs and PLPCs with substance abuse and behavioral disorder counselors, and BLS publishes no LPC-only median for Missouri.

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

The social worker row counts an occupation, not a licence: OEWS publishes no split between Missouri's LCSWs and LMSWs, and an LCSW is counted either in this row or in healthcare social work depending on the setting of the job, so the Missouri social worker median does not describe every LCSW.

Of the three occupations on this page, one carries a small-sample flag: marriage and family therapists, whose Missouri employment estimate is 390 — small enough that the page marks the row's full table rather than treating it like the larger rows.

The practical effect is on how far the figures can be pushed: the median of $60,440 and the hourly median of $29.06 are quoted in this analysis, and the 10th, 25th, 75th and 90th percentiles of that row are not built on here.

The counselor and social worker rows, with employment estimates of 8,130 and 1,640, carry no flag.

Employment estimates are headcounts of people in jobs during the survey period, not open positions.