Therapist Salary in North Dakota: Counselors, MFTs and Social Workers

Both published North Dakota medians sit above their national counterparts, and the counselor gap is the wider one.

The counselor median of $68,630 is $9,280 above the national $59,350, a 16% difference; the social worker median of $60,980 is $700 above the national $60,280, a 1% difference.

BLS publishes no estimate for North Dakota for marriage and family therapists, so the third row is empty here.

The two occupations also swap places between the state and the nation: nationally the social worker median of $60,280 leads the counselor median of $59,350 by $930, while in North Dakota counselors lead social workers by $7,650.

The hourly medians, $33.00 and $29.32, sit above their national counterparts of $28.53 and $28.98 in the same order.

The North Dakota counselor premium is concentrated below the top of the distribution.

The 10th percentile of $43,270 is 11% above the national figure and the 25th percentile of $55,450 is 18% above; the median of $68,630 is $9,280, or 16%, above the national $59,350 and ranks 5th of the 51 jurisdictions that publish one.

The premium then thins to 1% at the 75th percentile of $77,320 and turns to an 11% shortfall at the 90th, $86,630 against the national $97,590.

The distribution is compressed accordingly: the middle half spans $21,870 against a national band of $29,430, and the 10th-to-90th span is $43,360 against $58,650.

The hourly median is $33.00 against $28.53 nationally, 1.2 times the national figure.

BLS estimates 1,290 counselors employed in North Dakota, tied for 46th of the 50 jurisdictions that publish an employment estimate for this occupation, so the 5th-ranked median rests on one of the smaller counted workforces.

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

Mental health and substance abuse social workers in North Dakota have a median of $60,980, $700 above the national median of $60,280, a difference of 1%.

The hourly median is $29.32 against $28.98 nationally, $0.34 above.

By median, North Dakota ranks 19th of the 51 jurisdictions that publish one for this occupation.

This is also the row to read with the most caution: BLS estimates only 240 social workers employed in the state, 48th of the 50 jurisdictions that publish an employment estimate, and on a count that small the percentile table can swing sharply between releases.

So this page quotes only the row's median, hourly median and employment estimate, and the full percentile table below carries the amber caveat.

OEWS does not say why the median sits where it does, and this page does not guess.

Read an offer against the row for the occupation the job would be counted in, never against a single North Dakota therapy number, because the page has none.

The hourly medians are $33.00 for counselors and $29.32 for mental health and substance abuse social workers, $3.68 apart, and both sit above their national counterparts of $28.53 and $28.98.

An annual figure at the social worker median of $60,980 would sit $7,650 below the counselor median of $68,630 while remaining $700 above the national social worker median.

A percentile is a position in the state distribution, not a pay step, so an offer at the 25th percentile says where a figure sits among North Dakota jobs in that occupation.

None of the figures on this page is a licence figure.

The counselor row pools North Dakota's LPCs with substance abuse and behavioral disorder counselors, so BLS publishes no LPC-only median for the state, and the associate stage, the LAPC, is not split out at all; the LPCC is a specialty licence layered on the LPC, and OEWS does not split the row by licence there either.

The social worker row mixes licence levels as well: clinical social workers holding the LCSW are counted either in this row or in healthcare social work, depending on the setting, so the $60,980 median does not describe every LCSW, and pay at the LBSW and LMSW levels is not visible in it.

North Dakota does license marriage and family therapists, under the state's marriage and family therapist licence with an associate marriage and family therapist licence below it, but BLS publishes no estimate for the occupation in this state, so no figure on this page describes a marriage and family therapist at all.

The counselor row rests on an employment estimate of 1,290, above the count this page uses to flag a row small-sample, so its full percentile spread is quotable and it carries no amber note.

The mental health and substance abuse social worker row is the opposite: its employment estimate is 240, below the flag's threshold, so the count behind its percentiles is small and in prose this page quotes only that row's median of $60,980, its hourly median of $29.32 and its employment estimate.

The $68,630 counselor median is the page's headline figure, and the 5th-of-51 rank behind it should be read as a property of the state's distribution, not as a settled benchmark for any single job.