Therapist Salary in New Hampshire: Counselors, MFTs and Social Workers

Set against their own national figures, the three New Hampshire medians split two below and one above.

The counselor median of $54,840 is $4,510 below the national $59,350, and the family therapist median of $60,030 is $6,910 below the national $66,940; the social worker median of $63,900 is $3,620 above the national $60,280.

The order at the top flips as a result: nationally the family therapist median leads the social worker median by $6,660, while in New Hampshire social workers lead family therapists by $3,870.

Counselors are the lowest of the three in the state and nationally, $9,060 below the social worker median here and $930 below it nationally.

The ranks point the same way: the social worker median ranks 14th of the 51 jurisdictions that publish one for this occupation, the family therapist median 28th of 45, the counselor median 40th of 51.

Any single New Hampshire figure for therapists as such would have to hide one of these directions.

The New Hampshire counselor shortfall against the national figures is a ceiling effect.

At the floor the two distributions are nearly level: the 10th percentile of $38,480 is $460 below the national figure and the 25th percentile of $46,580 is $520 below, 1% under in both cases.

The gap widens through the middle — the median of $54,840 is 8% below the national $59,350 and the 75th percentile of $69,420 is 9% below the national $76,530 — and it is widest at the top, where the 90th percentile of $81,050 is $16,540, or 17%, below the national $97,590.

Both spans are narrower than their national counterparts: the middle half covers $22,840 against the national band of $29,430, and the 10th-to-90th span is $42,570 against $58,650.

The hourly median is $26.36 against $28.53 nationally.

BLS estimates 3,690 counselors employed in New Hampshire, and the median ranks 40th of the 51 jurisdictions that publish one.

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

Marriage and family therapists had a New Hampshire median of $60,030, 10% below the national median of $66,940, a gap of $6,910.

The hourly median is $28.86 against $32.18 nationally.

At the median the occupation sits between the state's other two rows, $5,190 above the counselor median and $3,870 below the social worker median, and the median ranks 28th of the 45 jurisdictions that publish one for this occupation.

The row carries the page's small-sample flag, though: BLS estimates 70 marriage and family therapists employed in New Hampshire, which ranks 39th of the 40 jurisdictions that publish an employment estimate for this occupation.

An estimate this small is why the page builds nothing on this occupation's percentile figures and works from its median, hourly median and employment count instead; the full table is printed above with the flag.

OEWS does not say why the count is this small, and this page does not guess.

Mental health and substance abuse social workers are the one New Hampshire row whose median sits above its national figure: $63,900 against $60,280, a difference of $3,620, or 6%.

The hourly median shows the same direction, $30.72 against $28.98, also 6% above.

This is the state's highest median of the three — $3,870 above the family therapist median and $9,060 above the counselor median, 1.2 times the counselor figure — whereas nationally this occupation trails the family therapist median by $6,660.

By median the state ranks 14th of the 51 jurisdictions that publish one for this occupation.

The row carries the page's small-sample flag, though: BLS estimates 320 social workers employed in New Hampshire, which ties for 45th of the 50 jurisdictions that publish an employment estimate for this occupation, so the median, the hourly median and the employment count carry this analysis and the percentiles are printed above without being used.

Read an offer against the row for the occupation the job would be counted in, not a blended number.

The hourly medians make the spread concrete: $26.36 for counselors, $28.86 for marriage and family therapists and $30.72 for mental health and substance abuse social workers.

An annual offer of $60,030 would sit exactly at the family therapist median, $5,190 above the counselor median of $54,840 and $3,870 below the social worker median of $63,900; against the national family therapist median of $66,940 it sits $6,910 below.

Percentiles read the same way: an offer at the counselor 75th percentile of $69,420 sits $14,580 above the counselor median — a position in the state's counselor distribution, not a pay step or a judgement about the person hired.

None of the three rows is a licence figure, and New Hampshire's own titles make the splits concrete.

The counselor row pools LCMHCs — the licence the state issues for clinical mental health counselors — with substance abuse and behavioral disorder counselors, whom the state licenses at the MLADC tier, and BLS publishes no LCMHC-only median.

The family therapist row is the closest to a single licence: the state licenses this occupation as the LMFT, but OEWS does not split the row by licence stage, so it cannot say what a family therapist on a conditional licence earns.

Social workers: the independent clinical tier is the LICSW, with LSW and LSWA tiers below it, and social workers holding the LICSW are counted either in this row or in healthcare social work, depending on the setting, so the $63,900 median does not describe every LICSW.

The licensure pages linked below carry each licence's requirements.

Two of the three New Hampshire rows carry the page's small-sample flag.

The marriage and family therapist row is the smaller: BLS estimates 70 marriage and family therapists employed in New Hampshire.

The mental health and substance abuse social worker row is flagged as well, at an estimated 320 social workers.

An employment estimate this small is why the page builds nothing on either occupation's percentile figures — both tables are printed above with the flag — and works from their medians, hourly medians and employment counts instead.

The counselor row, with an estimated 3,690 workers, carries no flag, and its percentiles are used in the sections above.

None of this changes the medians themselves; it bounds what this page can responsibly do with the percentiles around them.