Therapist Salary in South Carolina: Counselors, MFTs and Social Workers

Every South Carolina median sits below its own national figure, by very different margins.

The counselor median of $52,370 is $6,980 below the national $59,350, a 12% gap; the family therapist median of $55,430 is $11,510 below the national $66,940, 17%; and the social worker median of $39,930 is $20,350 below the national $60,280, 34%.

The order changes at the bottom as a result.

Nationally the ranking at the median runs family therapists, social workers, counselors; in South Carolina it runs family therapists, counselors, social workers, because the national social worker lead over counselors of $930 becomes a counselor lead of $12,440 here.

The national family therapist lead over counselors, $7,590 at the median, holds its direction but narrows to $3,060.

One figure for therapists as a South Carolina title would have to hide all three directions.

The South Carolina counselor row sits below its national counterpart at every percentile, and the shortfall grows toward the top.

The 10th percentile of $35,010 is $3,930 below the national figure and the 25th of $43,070 is $4,030 below; the median of $52,370 is $6,980 below the national $59,350, a 12% gap; the 75th of $65,070 is $11,460 below; and the 90th of $81,420 is $16,170 below the national $97,590, 17%.

The middle half of the state distribution spans $22,000, against a national band of $29,430, and the 10th-to-90th span is $46,410 against $58,650.

BLS estimates 6,300 counselors employed in South Carolina, which ranks 28th of the 50 jurisdictions that publish an employment estimate; the median ranks 44th of 51.

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 median of South Carolina's three occupations: $55,430, which is $11,510 below the national median of $66,940, a 17% gap, and $3,060 above the state counselor median.

The hourly median is $26.65 against $32.18 nationally, $5.53 less.

This row carries the page's small-sample flag: BLS estimates 380 marriage and family therapists employed in South Carolina, the only one of the three rows under the page's small-sample threshold, so the page quotes this row at its median, its hourly median and its employment, and withholds its percentile tails from the analysis.

By median, South Carolina ranks 35th of the 45 jurisdictions where BLS publishes the occupation; by employment, 22nd of 40.

The median still orders the state's three occupations, $15,500 above the social worker median.

OEWS records wages and employment, not why this median sits where it does, and this page does not guess.

Mental health and substance abuse social workers show the largest gap to national of the three rows, and it widens moving up the distribution.

The median of $39,930 is $20,350 below the national $60,280, a 34% gap, and ranks 51st among the 51 jurisdictions that publish the occupation.

The 10th percentile of $30,250 is $9,490 below the national figure, the 25th of $34,770 is $12,300 below, the 75th of $49,720 is $30,010 below the national $79,730, and the 90th of $63,970 is $40,200 below the national $104,170.

The middle half spans $14,950, less than half the national band of $32,660, and the 10th-to-90th span is $33,720 against $64,430.

The hourly median is $19.20 against $28.98 nationally, $9.78 less.

BLS estimates 720 employed, which ranks 40th of the 50 jurisdictions that publish an employment estimate.

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

The same dollar offer reads differently in each row: the South Carolina counselor median of $52,370 sits $3,060 below the family therapist median of $55,430, but $12,440 above the social worker median of $39,930.

Hourly postings read the same way: the South Carolina hourly medians are $26.65 for family therapists, $25.18 for counselors and $19.20 for social workers, so the family therapist row and the social worker row sit $7.45 apart at the median.

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 South Carolina jobs in that occupation, not a judgement about the person hired.

None of the three rows is a licence figure.

The counselor row pools LPCs — South Carolina licenses professional counselors at the Licensed Professional Counselor level, with a pre-licensure associate licence tier — with substance abuse and behavioral disorder counselors, and BLS publishes no LPC-only median for the state.

The family therapist row is the closest to a single licence: South Carolina licenses marriage and family therapists as the LMFT, with a supervisor licence and its own pre-licensure associate tier, but OEWS does not split the row by licence stage, so it cannot say what an associate licensee earns.

Clinical social workers holding the LISW-CP, South Carolina's independent clinical social work licence, are counted either in this social worker row or in healthcare social work, depending on the setting, so the $39,930 median does not describe every LISW-CP.

The family therapist row carries this page's small-sample flag.

BLS estimates 380 marriage and family therapists employed in South Carolina — a small employment estimate, the only one of the three rows under the page's small-sample threshold — and the page responds by quoting that row only at its median, its hourly median and its employment.

The 10th, 25th, 75th and 90th percentiles for the row are printed in the table above but build nothing in the analysis, because percentile tails estimated from an employment count that small move sharply between releases.

The counselor and social worker rows, with estimated employment of 6,300 and 720, are not flagged.