Reference · BLS OEWS May 2025 · payroll employees, not the self-employed
What an employed therapist earns in each California metro, from the one survey that measures it.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics asks employers what they pay. For marriage and family therapists the May 2025 median runs from $95,110 in San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara to $49,610 in San Diego-Chula Vista-Carlsbad, against $67,300 statewide and $66,940 nationally. Twenty-five metros and three rural regions, four occupations, the 10th and 90th percentiles, and the series ID behind every figure. What it does not measure is a private practice: OEWS does not survey the self-employed.
Marriage and family therapists →Marriage and family therapists
24 areas publish an MFT median; San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara is highest, San Diego-Chula Vista-Carlsbad lowest.
The median is the wage at which half of employed MFTs in the area earn more and half less. The 10th and 90th percentiles bracket the range BLS observed. Employment is the count of MFT jobs on payrolls in the area in May 2025, rounded by BLS.
| Metropolitan area | Counties | Employed | Median | Mean | 10th percentile | 90th percentile |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| California | statewide | 34,970 | $67,300 | $79,440 | $46,350 | $130,340 |
| United States | national | 66,740 | $66,940 | $76,960 | $44,650 | $123,730 |
| San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara | San Benito, Santa Clara | 1,180 | $95,110 | $105,320 | $52,710 | $164,360 |
| Vallejo | Solano | 150 | $93,810 | $97,720 | $44,780 | $153,140 |
| Napa | Napa | 50 | $88,520 | $100,790 | $62,380 | $163,800 |
| Santa Maria-Santa Barbara | Santa Barbara | 220 | $85,450 | $93,290 | $57,150 | $132,850 |
| Santa Rosa-Petaluma | Sonoma | 290 | $84,080 | $93,930 | $47,390 | $152,880 |
| Chico | Butte | 90 | $81,780 | $90,700 | $44,710 | $146,330 |
| North Valley-Northern Mountains Region of California (nonmetropolitan) | Colusa, Glenn, Lassen, Modoc, Nevada, Plumas, Sierra, Siskiyou, Tehama, Trinity | 60 | $81,350 | $91,300 | $59,970 | $152,560 |
| San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont | Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, San Francisco, San Mateo | — | $77,210 | $95,400 | $56,540 | $166,110 |
| Sacramento-Roseville-Folsom | El Dorado, Placer, Sacramento, Yolo | 1,380 | $75,030 | $84,310 | $47,150 | $150,150 |
| Fresno | Fresno | 640 | $74,970 | $83,550 | $43,710 | $140,160 |
| North Coast Region of California (nonmetropolitan) | Del Norte, Humboldt, Lake, Mendocino | 200 | $74,530 | $86,100 | $46,110 | $132,560 |
| Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim | Los Angeles, Orange | 13,200 | $71,110 | $77,240 | $47,050 | $118,020 |
| Redding | Shasta | 210 | $71,110 | $78,970 | $37,400 | $133,640 |
| Bakersfield-Delano | Kern | 350 | $71,010 | $80,090 | $43,120 | $128,430 |
| Santa Cruz-Watsonville | Santa Cruz | 130 | $70,910 | $83,810 | $47,690 | $148,210 |
| El Centro | Imperial | 50 | $70,370 | $84,500 | $44,290 | $127,200 |
| Stockton-Lodi | San Joaquin | 310 | $69,960 | $84,160 | $45,550 | $146,280 |
| Modesto | Stanislaus | 240 | $69,680 | $78,510 | $49,160 | $136,700 |
| Visalia | Tulare | 130 | $69,100 | $78,720 | $46,960 | $129,840 |
| Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario | Riverside, San Bernardino | — | $68,570 | $75,210 | $44,050 | $125,480 |
| Yuba City | Sutter, Yuba | 50 | $67,260 | $76,860 | $38,910 | $144,240 |
| Salinas | Monterey | 140 | $65,930 | $78,570 | $48,310 | $130,810 |
| Oxnard-Thousand Oaks-Ventura | Ventura | — | $49,680 | $66,140 | $44,100 | $96,010 |
| San Diego-Chula Vista-Carlsbad | San Diego | 5,350 | $49,610 | $65,440 | $42,430 | $109,200 |
| San Luis Obispo-Paso Robles | San Luis Obispo | 170 | — | — | — | — |
| Hanford-Corcoran | Kings | — | — | — | — | — |
| Merced | Merced | — | — | — | — | — |
| Eastern Sierra-Mother Lode Region of California (nonmetropolitan) | Alpine, Amador, Calaveras, Inyo, Mariposa, Mono, Tuolumne | 50 | — | — | — | — |
Marriage and family therapists (SOC 21-1013), May 2025 OEWS. Annual wages for payroll employees; the self-employed are not surveyed. A dash is BLS’s suppression, not a zero: for Oxnard, Riverside–San Bernardino and San Francisco–Oakland BLS published the wages but not the employment count; for San Luis Obispo and the Eastern Sierra it published the count but not the wages; Hanford–Corcoran and Merced have no MFT series. Sorted by median; the state and the nation first, the areas without a median last.
The spread is 1.92 to one, and it is not the whole story
San Jose’s median is 92% above San Diego’s. The metro with the most MFT jobs, Los Angeles–Long Beach–Anaheim with 13,200, sits at $71,110, above the state median of $67,300. Before reading a high median as a reason to move, put it against what the same dollar buys in each county; the site’s cost-of-living page does that arithmetic.
Counselors, social workers, psychologists
The three neighboring occupations, same survey, same month.
The counselor group is broad: the 2018 occupational classification merged mental health counselors with substance abuse and behavioral disorder counselors into one code, so an LPCC in a clinic and a certified substance-use counselor are counted together, and the medians below are lower than an LPCC-only figure would be. Mental health and substance abuse social workers is where an LCSW in a behavioral-health setting is counted; healthcare social workers (21-1022) in hospitals are a separate code not shown.
| Metropolitan area | Counselors employed | Counselors median | MH social workers employed | MH social workers median | Psychologists employed | Psychologists median |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| California | 75,610 | $59,250 | 19,860 | $79,000 | 12,840 | $116,000 |
| United States | 491,930 | $59,350 | 132,810 | $60,280 | 75,990 | $100,580 |
| San Luis Obispo-Paso Robles | 350 | $80,770 | 140 | $98,800 | 90 | $155,960 |
| Salinas | 620 | $73,940 | 100 | $97,200 | 90 | $98,430 |
| El Centro | 220 | $73,620 | 50 | $48,770 | — | — |
| Hanford-Corcoran | 190 | $72,960 | 80 | $91,730 | 40 | $147,210 |
| Stockton-Lodi | 1,260 | $72,770 | 150 | $77,770 | 160 | $129,860 |
| San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara | 2,550 | $72,550 | 1,010 | $109,050 | 590 | $102,710 |
| San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont | 9,520 | $68,400 | 1,990 | $87,550 | 1,540 | $166,400 |
| Vallejo | 670 | $66,940 | 120 | $122,930 | 180 | $143,600 |
| Oxnard-Thousand Oaks-Ventura | 1,330 | $64,910 | 340 | $64,990 | 300 | $116,960 |
| Santa Rosa-Petaluma | 870 | $63,980 | 160 | $84,190 | 200 | $116,620 |
| Santa Maria-Santa Barbara | 860 | $63,010 | 160 | $81,240 | 150 | $102,120 |
| Chico | 380 | $62,780 | 50 | $56,030 | — | — |
| Modesto | 1,390 | $62,700 | 170 | $78,880 | 70 | $123,030 |
| Napa | 240 | $62,580 | 230 | $68,830 | — | — |
| Visalia | 710 | $62,500 | 170 | $64,540 | 70 | $99,580 |
| North Valley-Northern Mountains Region of California (nonmetropolitan) | 490 | $62,160 | 60 | $72,180 | 40 | $122,330 |
| Yuba City | 270 | $62,030 | 40 | $56,790 | — | — |
| Eastern Sierra-Mother Lode Region of California (nonmetropolitan) | 180 | $61,820 | 40 | $93,920 | 30 | $138,830 |
| Sacramento-Roseville-Folsom | 4,360 | $61,050 | 1,330 | $83,150 | 630 | $153,050 |
| Merced | 420 | $60,780 | 40 | $59,500 | — | — |
| North Coast Region of California (nonmetropolitan) | 530 | $60,380 | 140 | $67,370 | 80 | $100,390 |
| Fresno | 2,150 | $59,790 | 620 | $64,910 | 280 | $129,120 |
| Bakersfield-Delano | 1,730 | $59,620 | 260 | $77,500 | 180 | $116,550 |
| Santa Cruz-Watsonville | 530 | $58,790 | 70 | $62,680 | 60 | $112,860 |
| Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario | 6,980 | $57,880 | 1,310 | $87,370 | 1,130 | $92,730 |
| San Diego-Chula Vista-Carlsbad | 6,500 | $57,660 | 1,030 | $75,570 | 1,650 | $72,090 |
| Redding | 350 | $56,340 | 80 | $64,760 | — | — |
| Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim | 26,960 | $51,910 | 9,380 | $78,410 | 4,790 | $99,250 |
Substance abuse, behavioral disorder, and mental health counselors (21-1018; the SOC group that holds LPCC-type work alongside substance-use counseling), mental health and substance abuse social workers (21-1023) and clinical and counseling psychologists (19-3033). Medians, May 2025. Sorted by the counselor median.
How to read it
Four things the survey is, and one thing it is not.
OEWS asks establishments what they pay the people on their payroll, by occupation. The figures describe salaried and hourly work in agencies, clinics, hospitals, schools, counties and group practices.
The technical notes: “The survey does not include the self-employed, owners and partners in unincorporated firms, household workers, or unpaid family workers.” A therapist who owns a private practice is not in these numbers, and neither is what that practice earns. That side of the question is on the rates page and in the practice simulator.
The technical notes: wages are “straight-time, gross pay, exclusive of premium pay”; overtime pay, nonproduction bonuses and the employer’s cost of benefits are excluded, and an annual rate is the hourly rate “multiplied by a typical work year of 2,080 hours”. An annual figure for a part-time job is what that job would pay full time at its hourly rate, not what the part-time worker took home.
BLS withholds an estimate that does not meet its publication standards or where the occupation was not sampled in that area. Small metros and the three nonmetropolitan regions lose the most; Hanford–Corcoran and Merced publish counselor figures but no MFT figures at all.
The estimates “are based on responses from six semiannual panels collected over a 3-year period: May 2025, November 2024, May 2024, November 2023, May 2023, and November 2022”, with earlier panels adjusted to the reference date. The next release will replace these figures, and the series IDs in the sources let anyone re-pull them.
Then what
The other pay pages, and the decision they feed.
County jobs
What California county jobs pay therapists
From the state’s own salary file: the same clinical role, county by county.
Before the license
What associates are paid in Los Angeles and the Bay Area
The postings, the splits and the hourly rates for registered associates.
Private practice
California therapist rates: what can be verified
The fee side of the same question, for the self-employed this survey does not count.
The decision
W-2 job or private practice?
Put a salary from this page against your rate, costs and health premium.
Where every figure came from
Sources.
The survey
- BLS, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics: the May 2025 tables
- BLS OEWS, technical notes for the May 2025 estimates: scope, the self-employed, the wage definition, 2,080 hours, the six panels
- BLS OEWS, May 2025 estimates: California
- BLS OEWS, May 2025 metropolitan and nonmetropolitan area estimates (the index carrying each area’s code)
- BLS OEWS, May 2025 metropolitan and nonmetropolitan area definitions (the counties in each area)
- BLS OEWS FAQ: “Does OEWS have occupational employment estimates that include the self-employed? No.”
- BLS Public Data API v2, series ID format (OEU + area type + area + industry + occupation + data type)
The occupations
Carried from pages on this site
Every figure was pulled from api.bls.gov on 5 September 2026 as a May 2025 annual estimate; the series ID for a cell is OEU, the area type (M metro, S state, N national), the seven-digit area code, 000000, the six-digit SOC code and the data type (01 employment, 13 median, 04 mean, 11 and 15 the 10th and 90th percentiles). The vendored file carries all 330. Not a wage offer, not a prediction of what any job pays; the range is the point.
