Psychologist Salary (as of May 2013)

[CogNeuroGuy]

I did a brief search, mainly with BLS data to see what the trend is like in salaries from the last survey (2012). According to their survey data, 50 percentile of psychologists are earning a mean of $91,000. In states such as New Hampshire, Maine, Vermont; the salaries are much higher ($120+) in the 50% range. Looking even closer, the gap between percentiles (e.g. 10th, 25th, 50th, 75th, 90th) are much tighter in those northeastern states. We would like to move back up to the northeast, and Vermont, Maine and New Hampshire are very nice places (at least in our opinions). With that being said, those states respectively also have a higher proportion of pharmacists making $140K+, which is great news for my husband.

With this being said, what are your thoughts?

Link: http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes193039.htm

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[xXIDaShizIXx]

I did a brief search, mainly with BLS data to see what the trend is like in salaries from the last survey (2012). According to their survey data, 50 percentile of psychologists are earning a mean of $91,000. In states such as New Hampshire, Maine, Vermont; the salaries are much higher ($120+) in the 50% range. Looking even closer, the gap between percentiles (e.g. 10th, 25th, 50th, 75th, 90th) are much tighter in those northeastern states. We would like to move back up to the northeast, and Vermont, Maine and New Hampshire are very nice places (at least in our opinions). With that being said, those states respectively also have a higher proportion of pharmacists making $140K+, which is great news for my husband.

With this being said, what are your thoughts?

Link: http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes193039.htm

Dang that seems high. What do you think?

 

[Ollie123]

Unless I misread something, mean salaries look lower in VT, though higher in NH. Be sure to factor in cost of living though - the northeast generally has a higher CoL. Depending on what kind of setting you want to live in (urban vs. rural) this can vastly outstrip the salary adjustment. A 50th percentile salary in a non-Chicago midwest city likely would allow for an enormously better lifestyle than a 75th percentile salary in say...Boston. Whether that is worth it is your call.

 

[CogNeuroGuy]

Unless I misread something, mean salaries look lower in VT, though higher in NH. Be sure to factor in cost of living though - the northeast generally has a higher CoL. Depending on what kind of setting you want to live in (urban vs. rural) this can vastly outstrip the salary adjustment. A 50th percentile salary in a non-Chicago midwest city likely would allow for an enormously better lifestyle than a 75th percentile salary in say...Boston. Whether that is worth it is your call.

Good catch; overall, rule of thumb - conservatives typically move from the Boston area of MA. to the southern portions of New Hampshire to escape the high taxes, and having a bigger bang for their buck .

 

[OneNeuroDoctor]

You have to factor in the cost of living. I took a school psychologist job in Chicago making $86,000's a year. They forgot to tell me of the high taxes and mandatory 10% of check into the teachers retirement system. On paper that was my highest two years salary but in reality I was living paycheck to paycheck. I decided to take lower salary and move to Texas with a very low cost of living.

 

[PsyDr]

I would exercise extreme caution if practicing in New Hampshire. That board is nuts.

 

[CogNeuroGuy]

Well....I've said it once, and I will say it again, my salary will go to pay our utility bills per month, and my husband's salary can pay for the other stuff since he will be better off salary-wise than I will .

 

[xXIDaShizIXx]

I would exercise extreme caution if practicing in New Hampshire. That board is nuts.

Care to expand on that one?

 

[MCParent]

Those data don't appear to be adjusted for time since degree, which makes income data sort of meaningless.

Edit: Or is this only pp income?

 

[weeblewobble]

This is the one for clinical, counseling, and school psychologists. My guess is that the other is for experimental psychologists, although it isn't defined. They do break it down by where psychologists work but not by years of experience.

ETA: These numbers are lower, unfortunately- but much more in line with what I've seen before.

 

[WisNeuro]

They collapsed clinical, counseling, and school into one category? Seems like a poor way to parse the data.

 

[weeblewobble]

They collapsed clinical, counseling, and school into one category? Seems like a poor way to parse the data.

Yeah, agreed. So that data might also include master's level school psychologists, for example, and as well as doctoral level school psychologists, whom are quite different from each other, let alone a doctoral level clinical psychologist. Difficult to impossible to interpret.

 

[xXIDaShizIXx]

Those data don't appear to be adjusted for time since degree, which makes income data sort of meaningless.

Edit: Or is this only pp income?

Well that is useless then.

 

[CogNeuroGuy]

I suppose the take home messages from these data is, our national average as measured from our 50 percentile has changed from the last time they surveyed this data (which is good). The other things I saw were, tighter/ more narrow gaps between the mean averages in wage from the 10th, 25th, 50th, 75th, 90th percentiles mainly in the northeast. If you look at Louisiana for example, there is a significant gap from P10 ($45K) to P25 ($68K), while P10 in New Hampshire is ($87K) and P25 ($95K). Obviously these data don't show us any stratification via credential (as Weeble had mentioned, are these master's level clinicians as well?) and they cluster all clinicians irrespective of type (e.g. school, counseling, clinical) which could mark significant differences in pay across these groups. I particularly like the population density maps, showing where psychologists are clustering around. Then taking that information, and searching for positions that are further away from these areas to see if there is any demand for clinicians and if so, if the pay is better or not.