Therapist Salary in Tennessee: Counselors, MFTs and Social Workers

All three Tennessee medians point the same way: down against their national figures.

The counselor median of $49,580 is $9,770 below the national $59,350, the family therapist median of $46,700 is $20,240 below the national $66,940, and the social worker median of $46,500 is $13,780 below the national $60,280.

The gaps between the occupations narrow too.

Nationally, family therapists lead counselors by $7,590 at the median and social workers by $6,660; in Tennessee, counselors lead family therapists by $2,880 and social workers by $3,080, leaving family therapists just $200 ahead of social workers.

So the national order, with family therapists on top, does not hold: Tennessee's counselor median is the highest of the three, and no occupation's median clears $50,000.

The counselor shortfall is narrowest at the floor of the distribution and widest at the ceiling.

The 10th percentile of $34,950 is 10% below the national figure, the 25th percentile of $39,160 is 17% below, the median of $49,580 is 16% below, the 75th percentile of $61,160 is 20% below, and the 90th percentile of $76,620 is 21% below the national $97,590.

Tennessee's compression sits in the middle and top of the range: the middle half of the distribution spans $22,000, against a national band of $29,430, and the 10th-to-90th span is $41,670 against $58,650.

BLS estimates 9,040 counselors employed in Tennessee, ranking 19th of the 50 jurisdictions that publish an employment estimate for the occupation, with a median that ranks 47th of 51.

For someone weighing a counselor offer, the reading is that the state's median figure sits $9,770 under the national one, and the shortfall is widest toward the ceiling.

This is a combined occupation: the figures pool every kind of counselor the title covers, so they describe no single licence.

Tennessee marriage and family therapists sit below the national distribution at every published point, and the gap explodes toward the ceiling.

The 10th percentile of $34,690 is 22% below the national figure and the 25th percentile of $40,350 is 19% below; the median of $46,700 is 30% below, the 75th percentile of $52,120 is 44% below, and the 90th percentile of $63,540 is 49% below the national $123,730.

The shape is the flattest of the three: from the median to the 75th percentile the distribution adds only $5,420, where the national spread over the same percentiles is $26,900.

The hourly median is $22.45 against $32.18 nationally.

BLS estimates 1,440 family therapists employed in Tennessee, 6th of the 40 jurisdictions that publish an employment estimate, with a median ranking 42nd of 45.

OEWS does not say why the ceiling sits so low, and this page does not guess.

Mental health and substance abuse social workers start close to their national figure at the bottom and fall behind as the distribution rises.

The 10th percentile of $38,320 is 4% below the national figure — the smallest gap of any figure on this page — but the 25th percentile of $42,780 is 9% below, the median of $46,500 is 23% below, the 75th percentile of $55,310 is 31% below, and the 90th percentile of $68,430 is 34% below the national $104,170.

The middle half of the Tennessee distribution spans $12,530 against the national band of $32,660, and the 10th-to-90th span is $30,110 against $64,430, so the compression matches the pattern in the other two rows.

The hourly median is $22.36.

BLS estimates 2,220 social workers employed in Tennessee, 19th of the 50 jurisdictions with an employment estimate, and the median ranks 43rd of 51.

Read an offer against the row for the occupation the job would be counted in.

At the hour: the Tennessee hourly medians are $23.84 for counselors, $22.45 for family therapists and $22.36 for social workers — all three within $1.48 of one another, while the national hourly medians run from $32.18 down to $28.53.

An annual offer at $49,580 sits at the Tennessee counselor median; the same figure weighed against the family therapist row is $2,880 above the state median of $46,700.

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

None of the three rows is a licence figure.

The counselor row pools LPCs, including holders of the LPC-MHSP designation, with substance abuse and behavioral disorder counselors, and BLS publishes no counselor-licence-only median for Tennessee.

The family therapist row is the closest to a single licence — marriage and family therapists are an occupation of their own, licensed as the LMFT with an AMFT associate licence beneath it — but OEWS does not split it by licence stage, so it cannot say what an AMFT holder earns.

Clinical social workers holding the LCSW are counted either in this social worker row or in healthcare social work, depending on the setting of the job, so the $46,500 median does not describe every LCSW.

The licensure pages linked under this section carry the rules behind the titles.