Therapist Salary in Oklahoma: Counselors, MFTs and Social Workers

Oklahoma's three medians sit at three different distances from their national figures, and none is above its own.

The counselor median of $59,350 is the national counselor median to the dollar.

The marriage and family therapist median of $57,670 is $9,270, or 14%, below the national $66,940, and the mental health and substance abuse social worker median of $43,120 is $17,160, or 28%, below the national $60,280.

The national order also does not survive: nationally family therapists lead counselors by $7,590 at the median, while in Oklahoma counselors lead family therapists by $1,680, and nationally the social worker median sits $930 above the counselor median while in Oklahoma it trails it by $16,230 — and by $14,550 against the family therapist median.

One Oklahoma figure for all three occupations would describe none of them.

The Oklahoma counselor median of $59,350 matches the national counselor median exactly, but the edges do not.

The 10th percentile of $35,350 is 9% below the national $38,940 and the 25th percentile of $41,930 is 11% below the national $47,100, while the 75th percentile of $79,620 is 4% above the national $76,530 and the 90th percentile of $92,870 is 5% below the national $97,590.

So the middle half spans $37,690 against a national band of $29,430 — the floor falls further below, the 75th percentile climbs above, and the ceiling stops short — and the 10th-to-90th span lands at $57,520 against $58,650.

For someone weighing a counselor offer, the state median and the national median are the same benchmark; what differs is the floor underneath it.

BLS estimates 5,150 counselors employed in Oklahoma, ranking 29th of the 50 jurisdictions that publish an employment estimate for this occupation, and the median ranks 29th of 51.

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

Oklahoma marriage and family therapists had a median of $57,670 — $9,270, or 14%, below the national median of $66,940.

The hourly median is $27.73 against $32.18 nationally, a gap of $4.45, and the state median ranks 31st of the 45 jurisdictions that publish a median for this occupation.

The section is deliberately short: BLS does not publish an employment estimate for Oklahoma in this occupation, so the page flags the row as a small sample and this analysis quotes the median only, never the percentiles.

The one placement the published figures support: the family therapist median sits $1,680 under the counselor median in Oklahoma, a reversal of the national picture, where the family therapist median of $66,940 leads the national counselor median of $59,350 by $7,590 — a lead that flips to a deficit against a counselor figure that describes a blended occupation, not this licence.

Mental health and substance abuse social workers sit below their national figures at every percentile, and the gap widens up the scale: the 10th percentile of $35,780 is 10% below the national $39,740, the median of $43,120 is $17,160, or 28%, below the national $60,280, the 75th percentile of $45,410 is 43% below the national $79,730, and the 90th percentile of $52,930 is 49% below the national $104,170.

The floor is the one point where this occupation sits above the counselor row: the 10th percentile is $430 above the counselor 10th percentile of $35,350, and from the 25th percentile up it trails the counselor row at every point.

The spread is compressed as well — the middle half spans $7,590 against a national band of $32,660, and the 10th-to-90th span is $17,150 against $64,430 — so the middle half of Oklahoma jobs in this occupation falls between $37,820 and $45,410.

BLS estimates 1,780 employed, ranking 22nd of the 50 jurisdictions that publish an employment estimate, and the median ranks 48th of 51.

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

The Oklahoma hourly medians are $28.53 for counselors, $27.73 for marriage and family therapists and $20.73 for mental health and substance abuse social workers: the counselor figure is identical to its national counterpart, the family therapist figure is $4.45 under the national $32.18, and the social worker figure is $8.25 under the national $28.98.

The same dollar offer lands differently by row — $43,120 is the social worker median and $16,230 under the counselor median — so anchor any comparison to the occupation, not to a single Oklahoma number.

Hour for hour, the counselor and family therapist hourly medians sit $0.80 apart, the closest pair on the page.

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

None of the three rows is a licence figure.

The counselor row pools Oklahoma LPCs with substance abuse and behavioral disorder counselors — the state's full counselor licence is the LPC, with an LPC Candidate tier beneath it — and BLS publishes no LPC-only median for Oklahoma.

The family therapist row is the closest of the three to a single licence: Oklahoma licenses marriage and family therapists as the LMFT, the Licensed Marital and Family Therapist, with a candidate tier of its own, but OEWS does not split the row by licence stage, so it cannot say what a candidate earns.

On the social work side the state licenses the LCSW, LMSW and LSW tiers, and the LCSWs among them are counted either in this social worker row or in healthcare social work, depending on the setting, so the $43,120 median does not describe every Oklahoma LCSW.

The marriage and family therapist row is the reason this page carries a data caveat: BLS does not publish an employment estimate for Oklahoma in that occupation for May 2025.

The page flags the row, and this analysis quotes only its median and hourly median — $57,670 and $27.73 — never its percentiles, because the page treats any row without a published employment estimate as too thin to quote percentiles from.

The counselor row, with 5,150 employed, and the social worker row, with 1,780, both carry published employment estimates, so their full percentile tables stand as printed.