Therapist Salary in Vermont: Counselors, MFTs and Social Workers

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

The counselor median of $61,810 is $2,460 above the national $59,350, and the social worker median of $73,210 is $12,930 above the national $60,280; the family therapist median of $62,780 is $4,160 below the national $66,940.

The order at the top flips as a result: nationally the family therapist median leads the social worker median by $6,660, while in Vermont social workers lead family therapists by $10,430.

The gap between counselors and family therapists nearly vanishes here — $970, against the national family therapist premium of $7,590.

The ranks point the same way: the social worker median ranks 7th of the 51 jurisdictions that publish one for this occupation, the counselor median 17th of 51, and the family therapist median 22nd of 45.

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

The counselor row is the one Vermont occupation whose full distribution the page can use without a small-sample flag, and it is compressed.

The floor sits far above the national floor: the 10th percentile of $47,820 is 23% above the national figure, and the 25th percentile of $56,730 is 20% above.

The median of $61,810 is 4% above the national $59,350.

The ceiling sits below it: the 75th percentile of $72,020 is 6% below the national $76,530, and the 90th percentile of $80,690 is 17% below the national $97,590.

Both spans are narrower than their national counterparts — the middle half covers $15,290 against a national band of $29,430, and the 10th-to-90th span is $32,870 against $58,650.

For someone weighing a counselor offer, the Vermont median is a higher benchmark than the national one, but the Vermont ceiling is not.

BLS estimates 1,120 counselors employed in Vermont, and the median ranks 17th 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 Vermont median of $62,780, 6% below the national median of $66,940, a gap of $4,160.

The hourly median is $30.19 against $32.18 nationally.

At the median the occupation sits $970 above the counselor median and $10,430 below the social worker median, and the median ranks 22nd of the 45 jurisdictions that publish one for this occupation.

The row carries the page's small-sample flag, though: BLS publishes no employment estimate for this occupation in Vermont, so the size of the sample behind the percentiles is unknown.

The page therefore builds nothing on this occupation's percentile figures and works from the median, the hourly median and the median gaps instead; the full table is printed above with the flag.

OEWS does not say why the employment estimate is missing, and this page does not guess.

Mental health and substance abuse social workers sit furthest above their national figure of the three Vermont rows: $73,210 against $60,280, a difference of $12,930, or 21%.

The hourly median shows the same direction, $35.20 against $28.98, also 21% above.

This is the state's highest median of the three — $10,430 above the family therapist median and $11,400 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 7th 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 Vermont, 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: $29.72 for counselors, $30.19 for marriage and family therapists and $35.20 for mental health and substance abuse social workers.

An annual offer of $62,780 would sit exactly at the family therapist median, $970 above the counselor median of $61,810 and $10,430 below the social worker median of $73,210; against the national family therapist median of $66,940 it sits $4,160 below.

Percentiles read the same way where the page can use them: an offer at the counselor 75th percentile of $72,020 sits $10,210 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 Vermont's own titles make the splits concrete.

The counselor row pools the state's clinical mental health counselor licence with substance abuse and behavioral disorder counselors, and BLS publishes no licence-only median for any part of the blend.

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 any tier of the licence earns.

The social worker row counts workers the state licenses at the LICSW and LMSW tiers without publishing a split between them, and clinical social workers are counted either in this row or in healthcare social work, depending on the setting, so the $73,210 median does not describe every LICSW.

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

Two of the three Vermont rows carry the page's small-sample flag, for two different reasons.

The marriage and family therapist row is flagged because BLS publishes no employment estimate for it in Vermont, so the size of the sample behind its percentiles is unknown.

The mental health and substance abuse social worker row is flagged because its estimated 320 social workers employed in Vermont is under the page's small-sample threshold, a count that ties for 45th of the 50 jurisdictions that publish an employment estimate for this occupation.

The counselor row, with an estimated 1,120 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.