County pay · the State Controller’s own file · read 11 August 2026
The same job pays 2.8 times more in one California county than another.
In short
What does a California county job actually pay a therapist?
Every county ranked by published salary range, three years of movement, and the one county that publishes what it pays a pre-licensed clinician
2.8× between the top and bottom countyNot a survey and not a job advert — this is what every county told the state it paid, for every position, three years running. 13,184 clinical mental health positions across 55 counties.
The spreadThree yearsEvery countyPre-licensedSan FranciscoHow it was countedSources
Why this page is here
Three pages on this site already point at the county job. The hiring page, because Medi-Cal is what lets an employer bill for a pre-licensed clinician at all. The loan-forgiveness page, because a county is a government employer and PSLF asks nothing further. The MBH-SLRP page, because a county behavioral health site is worth 20 of the 70 points.
None of them says what it pays. This one does, from the employers’ own returns rather than from anybody’s memory of a job advert.
The finding
$50,855 to $140,483, for the same work.
Median top of the published salary range in 2025, across the clinical mental health positions each county reported. The gap is 2.8×, and cost of living does not explain it — San Mateo is expensive, but it is not 2.8 times Imperial.
| County | Top of range | Floor of range | Positions |
|---|---|---|---|
| San Mateo | $140,483 | $112,320 | 312 |
| Monterey | $132,775 | $97,215 | 242 |
| Solano | $128,455 | $105,681 | 166 |
| Napa | $126,822 | $106,047 | 97 |
| Sonoma | $124,601 | $102,498 | 126 |
| Santa Clara | $122,425 | $101,130 | 445 |
| … 39 counties between … | |||
| Sutter | $69,659 | $49,379 | 84 |
| Butte | $65,707 | $49,046 | 311 |
| Modoc | $65,508 | — | 12 |
| Tuolumne | $58,048 | $47,756 | 42 |
| Lake | $55,203 | $45,427 | 37 |
| Imperial | $50,855 | $39,835 | 257 |
The full table of all 51 is further down. A county needs at least five reported positions to appear at all, so the very smallest are absent rather than shown on a sample of one.
Three years
The range moved $3,657 in two years.
Statewide medians across every county that reported. The top of the published range rose 3.6% between 2023 and 2025.
| Statewide median | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Positions counted | 12,297 | 13,041 | 13,184 |
| Counties reporting | 56 | 56 | 55 |
| Floor of the published range | $77,392 | $77,355 | $80,954 |
| Top of the published range | $102,170 | $100,656 | $105,827 |
| Actual total wages | $89,568 | $90,078 | $93,215 |
Actual wages sit below the range because they include people who started in November, took leave, or left in March. The range is what a person comparing two counties is actually choosing between.
What this is worth next to the loan repayment
A county job at the median top of range is $105,827. Put that beside the two programs a county unlocks and the picture changes: PSLF asks only that the employer is a government entity, and MBH-SLRP scores a county behavioral health site at 20 of its 70 points.
So the county job is not simply the low-paying option people describe in the groups. It is the middle of the pay distribution attached to the two largest loan repayment routes an associate can reach — which is the arithmetic the hiring page runs, and the loan-forgiveness page explains.
Every county
All 51, ordered by the top of the range.
| County | Top of range | Floor of range | Actual wages, median | Positions | Change since 2023 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| San Mateo | $140,483 | $112,320 | $129,426 | 312 | +13,062 |
| Monterey | $132,775 | $97,215 | $126,423 | 242 | +15,862 |
| Solano | $128,455 | $105,681 | $119,273 | 166 | +3,741 |
| Napa | $126,822 | $106,047 | $111,131 | 97 | +11,778 |
| Sonoma | $124,601 | $102,498 | $110,903 | 126 | +9,434 |
| Santa Clara | $122,425 | $101,130 | $112,899 | 445 | +9,233 |
| Santa Cruz | $120,307 | $95,035 | $108,696 | 188 | +10,941 |
| San Benito | $119,358 | $89,067 | $80,802 | 42 | +6,756 |
| Contra Costa | $118,997 | $80,159 | $107,765 | 531 | +11,063 |
| Marin | $116,438 | $96,574 | $120,581 | 78 | +7,800 |
| Los Angeles | $112,272 | $87,955 | $118,606 | 3,097 | +3,542 |
| Kings | $111,883 | $91,707 | $101,661 | 9 | +28,455 |
| Alameda | $111,599 | $97,227 | $107,057 | 148 | −2,554 |
| San Diego | $109,179 | $88,816 | $98,212 | 154 | +7,009 |
| San Luis Obispo | $109,054 | $85,446 | $91,750 | 100 | +6,385 |
| Calaveras | $107,411 | $87,381 | $83,508 | 12 | +20,342 |
| Inyo | $106,976 | $89,843 | $95,506 | 8 | −13,060 |
| Ventura | $105,827 | $75,551 | $90,088 | 358 | +7,036 |
| Fresno | $105,560 | $82,732 | $81,443 | 168 | +17,082 |
| Tulare | $104,184 | $85,486 | $88,233 | 159 | +6,925 |
| Nevada | $103,830 | $85,051 | $77,450 | 56 | −225 |
| Sacramento | $103,356 | $89,283 | $99,590 | 444 | +7,934 |
| Santa Barbara | $101,820 | $84,903 | $90,446 | 215 | −6,831 |
| Glenn | $100,432 | $82,617 | $84,740 | 22 | +2,776 |
| Orange | $99,944 | $80,454 | $86,898 | 828 | +7,758 |
| Colusa | $97,620 | $59,532 | $65,109 | 38 | +8,526 |
| Plumas | $94,890 | $61,069 | $69,891 | 32 | +8,632 |
| Amador | $94,889 | $78,062 | $96,622 | 12 | +6,884 |
| San Bernardino | $91,270 | $71,510 | $79,226 | 554 | +11,273 |
| Madera | $89,321 | $72,626 | $70,788 | 92 | +17,833 |
| Stanislaus | $88,566 | $72,862 | $77,759 | 343 | +6,302 |
| Shasta | $88,392 | $69,252 | $82,361 | 48 | +2,155 |
| Mono | $88,341 | $70,562 | $86,834 | 10 | +2,573 |
| El Dorado | $86,362 | $71,053 | $62,259 | 76 | +4,951 |
| Tehama | $84,926 | $67,829 | $47,721 | 9 | −3,869 |
| Trinity | $84,164 | $62,805 | $65,603 | 13 | −12,700 |
| San Joaquin | $83,709 | $68,867 | $76,158 | 493 | −3,520 |
| Merced | $79,394 | $69,024 | $65,401 | 270 | +5,284 |
| Mariposa | $79,352 | $69,420 | $77,717 | 27 | +6,238 |
| Del Norte | $77,840 | $51,283 | $67,020 | 19 | +5,160 |
| Humboldt | $77,525 | $60,414 | $71,542 | 136 | +0 |
| Kern | $75,279 | $75,279 | $76,182 | 581 | +5,743 |
| Yolo | $73,694 | $60,632 | $88,974 | 76 | +7,696 |
| Mendocino | $73,299 | $60,299 | $78,038 | 7 | +4,222 |
| Riverside | $71,729 | $48,472 | $67,204 | 1,581 | +6,043 |
| Sutter | $69,659 | $49,379 | $69,573 | 84 | −15,874 |
| Butte | $65,707 | $49,046 | $66,171 | 311 | +1,685 |
| Modoc | $65,508 | — | $59,308 | 12 | +7,932 |
| Tuolumne | $58,048 | $47,756 | $65,160 | 42 | +2,114 |
| Lake | $55,203 | $45,427 | $66,455 | 37 | −22,423 |
| Imperial | $50,855 | $39,835 | $46,325 | 257 | −38,241 |
2025 data, from the State Controller’s county file read 11 August 2026. “Change since 2023” compares the median top of range and is blank where the county did not report comparable positions that year. A dollar figure here is what the county published or paid — it is not an offer, and it is not what any individual earns.
How crowded each county already is with therapists is the county atlas, and which of them run the Medi-Cal plans is the employer directory.
The pre-licensed row
One county in the state publishes what it pays an associate.
Of 895 distinct job titles across three years, exactly one names the pre-licensed grade explicitly: San Bernardino, “Clinical Therapist Pre-License”. That makes a clean comparison possible against its own licensed grade — and makes it a sample of one county, which is said here rather than in a footnote.
| Grade | Floor of range | Top of range | People |
|---|---|---|---|
| Clinical Therapist Pre-License — San Bernardino | $71,510 | $91,270 | 175 |
| Clinical Therapist I–III, licensed — Riverside and San Bernardino | $73,528 | $104,682 | 524 |
The licensed grade spans two counties because Riverside uses the same title; the pre-licensed grade exists in one.
The gap at the top of the range is $13,412, or about 15%. That is what this one county has decided the license is worth, and it is the only county in California that publishes the comparison at all. Everywhere else the pre-licensed clinician is inside a grade that does not name them, which is its own finding about how visible associates are in public payroll data.
The county that is not in the file
San Francisco is missing from every table above, and it is one of the best payers in the state.
Not under-counted — absent. There is no employer named San Francisco anywhere in the State Controller’s county file, because San Francisco is a consolidated city and county and files in the cities dataset instead. The table above reports 55 of California’s 58 counties and this is one of the three it cannot see.
Read this before comparing the numbers
San Francisco publishes what it paid. It does not publish a salary range at all, so the figures below are actual base salary for full-time staff — a different measure from the published range that leads every table above, and one that normally sits below the top of a range rather than at it.
That is why San Francisco gets its own section rather than a row. Putting a derived range into a table of published ones would make every other number on this page harder to trust, which is a bad trade for one more line.
| San Francisco, full-time | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|
| People in these titles | 396 | 424 | 441 |
| Of those, full-time | 278 | 297 | 305 |
| Median base salary | $124,311 | $136,180 | $137,650 |
| Tenth percentile | $104,464 | $113,531 | $113,258 |
| Ninetieth percentile | $129,724 | $142,728 | $144,788 |
Base salary only — overtime and other pay excluded, benefits excluded. Full-time means the city recorded at least 1800 paid hours, which removes people who started late, left early or took leave. The county table above does not filter that way, which is one more reason these sit apart.
| Classification, 2025 | Full-time people | Median base | Tenth percentile | Ninetieth percentile |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Behavioral Health Clinician | 183 | $133,875 | $113,159 | $137,918 |
| Sr Behavioral Health Clinicn | 71 | $144,788 | $140,483 | $144,788 |
| Clinical Psychologist | 18 | $153,390 | $139,541 | $155,048 |
| Behavioral Health Team Leader | 17 | $111,991 | $102,297 | $114,184 |
| Marriage, Family & Child Cnslr | 16 | $133,932 | $120,527 | $133,932 |
The city’s own classification titles. Five more that a keyword search catches were left out by hand — juvenile hall and family court counselors, an environmental health inspector, and two single-person administrative roles — because none of them is a clinical classification.
What the comparison is actually worth
$133,875A San Francisco Behavioral Health Clinician was paid a median base of $133,875, and the senior grade $144,788. Against the statewide county median of $93,215 in actual total wages — the nearest like-for-like column on this page — that is a different market.
Two cautions in the same breath. The statewide figure includes part-year staff and this one does not, so some of the gap is measurement. And 298 of the 305 full-time posts sit in one department, Public Health — this is one large employer, not a city-wide average.
Headcount is the other half of it. 441 people held these titles in 2025, which would place San Francisco among the largest public behavioral health employers in the Bay Area — and the page said nothing about it until now. How crowded the county already is with therapists is the county atlas.
How it was counted
Three decisions, and what each of them costs.
Every row carries the position’s published salary range alongside what the person was actually paid. Actual pay includes part-year staff, leave and mid-year starters, so its median sits below the range and answers a different question. Both are printed.
895 distinct titles matched across three years, and county naming is wildly inconsistent — psychiatric social worker, behavioral health clinician, clinical therapist and mental health specialist all describe overlapping work. Anything a county names unusually is missed. Physical and occupational therapists, environmental health specialists and employment counselors are excluded deliberately, because a keyword match catches all of them.
It is what a county published as a range, or reported as paid, for a grade. What you are offered depends on the grade you are hired into, your step within it, and whether the posting is full time. Treat this as the shape of the market rather than as a number to quote in a negotiation.
The underlying files are public and bulk downloadable, so anything here can be checked against the source rather than taken on trust. What each setting pays an associate specifically, from job adverts rather than payroll, is on the associate pay page.
Where every figure came from
Sources.
The data
- Government Compensation in California — the State Controller’s bulk county files for 2023, 2024, 2025, read 11 August 2026
- San Francisco Employee Compensation, the city’s own file over DataSF, read 12 August 2026 — San Francisco is a consolidated city and county and is not in the Controller’s county download at all
Where the county job comes up elsewhere on this site
Figures are what counties reported to the State Controller for the years shown, reduced to medians by _dev/county_pay.py. The Controller states that information is posted as submitted by each employer and that it is not responsible for the accuracy of it. A figure here is a published range or a reported payment, not an offer, and not what any individual earns. Nothing here is career or financial advice.
