Psychology Salaries & Salary Outlook

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Simply being good at giving advice won’t get you into a psychology degree program, but it’s a good reason to start considering entering the profession. The best psychologists display just the sort of empathy and problem solving skills that come along with being able to give sound advice–and they make impressive salaries doing it.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the employment outlook is good for psychologists. Between 2006 and 2016 the market is expected to add 25,000 psychologists, bringing the total to 191,000. The education and training requirements are demanding, though. To become a licensed psychologist, you must earn an advanced degree in psychology, preferably a Ph.D. or Psy.D.; there are fewer opportunities for those with master’s degrees in psychology, and fewer yet for those with bachelor’s degrees. Additionally, supervised field work is usually required, not just by the degree granting institution, but by the state in which you reside. Required field work may range from several hundred hours to several thousand hours, depending on the psychology degree and the program. And many states have a licensing test which you must pass in order to practice. Because you may be in school for five to seven years, it pays to shop for the degree program that best fits your situation and career goals.

Psychology Salaries: Now That You’ve Got That Degree…

According to the 2008 BLS reports, the mean annual wage for psychologists is $70,190, while the median is $64,140 (half of all psychologists earn more, half less). Approximately 34 percent of psychologists are self-employed, which is far above the 8 percent for all workers. Not all of those who are self-employed have private practices (some consult for business, science, and education–which sometimes requires courses in that topic, in addtion to a typical psychology degree program).

Traditionally, private practice has been more lucrative per hour than working for an employer, but in the past few years, the cost of insurance that psychologists must carry has risen dramatically while the amount paid by insurance companies to psychologists for client care has dropped for both amount per visit and the number of visits allowed per coverage year. Nevertheless, some of the best paid therapists are still those with private practices in major metropolitan areas.

Of the 166,000 psychologists, there are approximately 152,000 clinical, counseling and school psychologists. Of these, 27 percent work in elementary and secondary schools where the the mean annual wage is $68,340, slightly below the national mean. The next largest employer of psychologists are healthcare providers including offices of other health practitioners (not physicians’ offices), family services, and outpatient clinics. Taken together, this segment employs approximately 11 percent of the 152,000 with annual mean wages just at the national mean.

Where Are the Best Paying Psychology Careers?

Psychologists in New Jersey, Colorado, California, Ohio and Rhode Island all make mean annual wages in the low to high $80,000s, according to the BLS. Industrial-organizational psychologists’ mean annual wages exceed those of clinical, counseling and school psychologists, but there are far fewer employment opportunities (only 2,400 projected by 2016). Otherwise, look to employment services, higher education, physicians, and offices of other health practitioners for the best paying jobs.

Lorraine Watkins
Lorraine Watkins is a business writer and a regular contributor to business and education websites. She is a graduate of California State University, East Bay with an MA in English.

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