Therapist Salary in Wisconsin: Counselors, MFTs and Social Workers

The Wisconsin counselor median of $62,220 is $2,870 above the national $59,350, and the social worker median of $61,860 is $1,580 above the national $60,280, so the two Wisconsin rows sit $360 apart.

The marriage and family therapist median of $37,870 is $29,070 below the national $66,940.

Nationally, the family therapist median leads the counselor median by $7,590; in Wisconsin it trails the counselor median by $24,350, or 64%.

The order reverses completely: the occupation that leads nationally sits at the bottom in Wisconsin, 45th of the 45 jurisdictions that publish a median for it.

Any single Wisconsin figure for therapists as such would have to hide all of this.

The Wisconsin counselor advantage is widest at the floor and narrows toward the top.

The 10th percentile of $46,510 is 19% above the national figure and the 25th percentile of $52,420 is 11% above, while the median of $62,220 is 5% above the national $59,350 and the 75th percentile of $77,520 sits 1% above.

At the 90th percentile the row falls below national, $94,640 against the national $97,590.

The middle half of the Wisconsin distribution spans $25,100, narrower than the national band of $29,430.

For someone weighing a counselor offer, the Wisconsin figures are the higher benchmarks through the floor and middle, but the Wisconsin ceiling is not.

This is a combined occupation: the figures pool Wisconsin's licensed professional counselors with substance abuse and behavioral disorder counselors.

Wisconsin marriage and family therapists had a median of $37,870, $29,070 below the national median of $66,940 — a 43% gap, the widest of the three occupations against their own national figures.

The hourly median is $18.21 against $32.18 nationally.

BLS estimates 180 marriage and family therapists employed in Wisconsin, a small employment estimate, so this page quotes the occupation's median only and builds no analysis on its percentiles.

At the median Wisconsin ranks 45th of the 45 jurisdictions that publish a median for the occupation, and no publishing jurisdiction has a lower one.

OEWS does not say why the gap is this wide, and this page does not guess.

Mental health and substance abuse social workers in Wisconsin sit above the national distribution through the floor and middle and below it at the top.

The 10th percentile of $45,430 is 14% above the national figure, the 25th percentile of $49,720 is 6% above, and the median of $61,860 is 3% above the national $60,280.

The 75th percentile of $75,360 is 5% below the national $79,730 and the 90th percentile of $87,690 is 16% below the national $104,170.

The Wisconsin 10th-to-90th span is $42,260 against a national span of $64,430: the Wisconsin distribution starts higher and tops out lower.

For someone weighing a social work offer, the Wisconsin figure is the higher of the two up to the median and the lower of the two above it.

BLS estimates 1,880 employed in Wisconsin, which ranks 20th of the 50 jurisdictions that publish an employment estimate for the occupation.

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

The Wisconsin hourly medians are $29.91 for counselors, $18.21 for marriage and family therapists and $29.74 for mental health and substance abuse social workers, against national hourly medians of $28.53, $32.18 and $28.98.

A salary at the Wisconsin counselor median of $62,220 would sit $360 above the Wisconsin social worker median and $24,350 above the Wisconsin family therapist median, so the same dollar figure reads very differently depending on the row.

A percentile is a position in the state's distribution, not a career stage, so an offer at the 25th percentile says where a figure sits among Wisconsin 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 with substance abuse and behavioral disorder counselors, and BLS publishes no LPC-only median for Wisconsin.

Wisconsin licenses professional counselors as the LPC and also issues a professional counselor training license on the way to full licensure; OEWS does not split the row by licence stage, so nothing here says what a training-license holder earns.

The marriage and family therapist row is the one occupation of its own among the three; Wisconsin licenses marriage and family therapists, with a marriage and family therapist training license as its training tier, and that row is not split by stage either.

Clinical social workers holding the LCSW, Wisconsin's clinical social worker license, are counted either in this social worker row or in healthcare social work depending on the setting of the job, so the Wisconsin figures do not describe every LCSW.

The marriage and family therapist row carries this page's small-sample flag: BLS estimates 180 marriage and family therapists employed in Wisconsin, an estimate the series flags as small, so the page quotes that occupation's median only and the analysis above builds nothing on its percentiles.

The counselor and social worker rows carry no flag, with employment estimates of 8,340 and 1,880.

Wisconsin's family therapist employment estimate ranks 30th of the 40 jurisdictions that publish one, tied with one other state.