Occupation / job
Clinical and Counseling Psychologists
Median annual pay. Half earn less than this.
Hourly at a standard 2,080-hour year. We do not yet have unpaid-time or cost data for this, so this is not an adjusted figure.
The middle half. A quarter earn below this range.
Source: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 · view
What this figure cannot tell you
It covers people EMPLOYED in this occupation. Anyone who trained for it and was never hired is not in the median above, and neither is anyone doing the work self-employed. No verified count of qualified people exists for this occupation, so this page shows none rather than an estimate. Why that matters · The occupations where we could source it
Who this suits
$100,580 is $4,213 a month above the $50,020 the typical American job pays. Differences of that size in Clinical and Counseling Psychologists are held in place by a barrier — a licence, a residency, a clearance — and the barrier is the real subject of this page.
75,990 people are employed in this work. Big enough for a real market in every major metro, small enough that experience in Clinical and Counseling Psychologists is still a distinguishing thing to have.
Social science suits people who can study human behaviour without needing the answer to be flattering, and who can defend a method to people who dislike the conclusion.
No verified preparation time is on file for Clinical and Counseling Psychologists. The wage survey behind every figure on this page asks employers what they pay, not what they required, so the honest answer here is that we do not know.
Who should not do this
A quarter of the field earns under $73,210 and a quarter over $135,200: $61,990 between them, a ratio of 1.8x. Wide enough that the first offer you get tells you more about your prospects than the median does.
The bottom quarter of this field earns $73,210 — $35.19 an hour, $23,190 above the $50,020 national midpoint. When even the worst-paid quarter of Clinical and Counseling Psychologists is this far ahead, the barrier to entry is doing the work of keeping it there.
Avoid it if you need your field to be treated as settled; much of this work is contested in public.
You will not find a "what share make it" figure here. 75,990 is a headcount of the employed, which is a numerator without a denominator — everyone who qualified and never got hired is missing from it, and we will not estimate them to complete a percentage.
What the spread tells you
From $73,210 to $135,200 at a ratio of 1.8x is wide enough that two people with the same job title have materially different jobs. $100,580 sits in the middle of that and describes neither of them especially well.
In cash terms the middle half of Clinical and Counseling Psychologists runs $73,210 to $135,200 — $61,990 a year between the 25th and 75th percentiles, against a midpoint of $100,580.
Between $73,210 and $135,200 — the two ends of the middle half — sits $100,580. Moving from the midpoint to the upper quarter is worth $34,620; the whole climb from the lower quarter is $61,990.
The climb from $100,580 to $135,200 is $34,620; the drop to $73,210 is $27,370. A little more room above the midpoint than below it is the normal shape for Clinical and Counseling Psychologists and for most paid work, and it is the reason the median is the honest summary rather than the average.
Converted to an hourly rate over a full-time year: $35.19 at the bottom quarter, $48.35 at the midpoint, $65.00 at the top quarter. The typical American job works out at $24.04 on the same basis.
What these figures are, and what they are not
Employers reported these wages for people already working as Clinical and Counseling Psychologists. The self-employed are excluded, so $100,580 does not describe an independent doing the same work.
Treat the per-hour figure as a conversion. It assumes a flat full-time year against $100,580 because we have no verified record of unpaid hours or out-of-pocket costs for this work, and we would rather convert honestly than adjust invented ones.
How this is calculated · Self-employment failure rates · What credentials cost and pay back · Look up something else