Occupation / job
Social Workers, All Other
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
A midpoint of $71,900 against $50,020 means Social Workers, All Other pays $1,823 a month more than the typical American job. At that distance the entry requirement is the real subject, because it is what the premium is buying.
62,930 people are employed in this work. Big enough for a real market in every major metro, small enough that experience in Social Workers, All Other is still a distinguishing thing to have.
This work suits people who can be useful to someone inside a system that is not resourced to fix their situation, and who can measure a good day in something other than resolution.
How long it takes to become one of the 62,930 people doing this is not something we have a source for. BLS counts and pays them; it does not record how they got there, and we would rather say so than guess.
Who should not do this
$45,140 separates the bottom quarter of Social Workers, All Other at $51,900 from the top quarter at $97,040. At a 1.9x ratio the midpoint is a weak guide to your own first year — find out which end you would be entering at.
Even the 25th percentile pays $51,900, $1,880 more than the $50,020 typical American job and $24.95 an hour. The floor, not the median, is the strongest financial argument for Social Workers, All Other.
Avoid it if you take work home emotionally. The caseloads are above what the funding supports and that is structural, not local.
No failure rate is shown, and the absence is deliberate: the 62,930 figure counts people already working as Social Workers, All Other, not everyone who trained and never got hired. Without a licensing register to divide by, a rate here would be an invented denominator.
What the spread tells you
From $51,900 to $97,040 at a ratio of 1.9x is wide enough that two people with the same job title have materially different jobs. $71,900 sits in the middle of that and describes neither of them especially well.
Put in money rather than ratios: $51,900 at the 25th percentile, $71,900 at the midpoint, $97,040 at the 75th. $45,140 separates the quarter of Social Workers, All Other at the bottom from the quarter at the top.
The 75th percentile is $97,040. Reaching it from the $71,900 midpoint is $25,140 a year; reaching it from the $51,900 that the bottom quarter of Social Workers, All Other earn is $45,140.
From $71,900 it is $20,000 down to the bottom quarter and $25,140 up to the top. The upper half of the range is the longer one, which is the ordinary shape for work where experience compounds.
Converted to an hourly rate over a full-time year: $24.95 at the bottom quarter, $34.56 at the midpoint, $46.65 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
This is payroll data: it comes from employers, about people they employ. Anyone doing the work of Social Workers, All Other for themselves is not in it, and there is no reason to assume $71,900 describes them.
With no unpaid-hours or cost data for Social Workers, All Other, the hourly figure is $71,900 over a 2,080-hour year — a unit conversion, not an adjustment.
How this is calculated · Self-employment failure rates · What credentials cost and pay back · Look up something else