Physical therapists play an essential role in improving the health and well-being of their patients. Specifically, their services include pain management, increased joint mobility, and maintenance or improvements of functional mobility and ambulation. Saying they are highly respected members of the healthcare team is an understatement. Becoming a physical therapist is intense and requires extensive training and education, which usually includes a baccalaureate degree plus several years of graduate school at either the master’s or doctoral level. Considering all that goes into becoming a P.T. and maintaining one’s licensure, it’s natural to expect the physical therapist’s salary should be fair based on their contributions to the healthcare community.
Average PT Salaries
We collected average physical therapy salaries from reputable online sources, including one government source (BLS). As we would expect, each source varies somewhat from the others based on their defined methodology for data collection and analysis and data sources.
U.S Burea of Labor Statistics (BLS)
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics provides salary data for approximately 830 occupations by geographic location. This government agency samples data from businesses and establishments across industries in each state to perform their analysis. Based on May 2022 published data, the annual salary for physical therapists was $97,960.
Salary.com
Salary.com is a popular website for salary data for many occupations across the U.S. According to their site; they purchase survey data from reputable sources and firms to calculate and perform salary analysis. Their Salary Wizard allows you to calculate salary statistics based on your location. Salary.com estimates the average physical therapy salary is $97,502.
Glassdoor.com
Glassdoor.com collects salary information from its users to calculate median pay by location. Their proprietary model estimates the U.S. average physical therapist salary as $82,530 annually.
Indeed.com
Indeed.com uses salary data from its extensive database to calculate average salaries by region. We could not obtain median physical therapy salary data from indeed.com but could obtain mean average salary data. According to Indeed, the average physical therapist’s salary in the U.S. is $85,817.
ZipRecruiter.com
Like Indeed, ZipRecruiter calculates salaries from its extensive database of posted jobs by state or city. Also, it only reports average salary vs. mean salary, like Indeed. According to ZipRecruiter, the average physical therapist’s salary in the U.S. is $96,458 the week of June 23, 2023.
Don’t Forget the Cost of Living
When considering a salary for any job, you must always consider the cost of living. The cost of living is the amount of money required to maintain a lifestyle in a specific location or city. Consider this scenario, a physical therapist makes $100,000 in Raleigh, North Carolina, yet is considering a new position in Los Angeles, California. Based on the cost of living, the physical therapist would need to earn $155,533 per year to maintain the same standard of living. Why? Because the cost of living is 55.33% higher in Los Angeles than in Raleigh. Bankrate has a convenient online calculator to quickly help you calculate your required salary to account for differences in the cost of living.
Summary
- Physical therapists provide a valuable service that improves many people’s lives each year.
- Depending on the source of data and whether it’s reported as median or mean, physical therapy salaries vary somewhat depending on the source. Still, they are generally reported between mid $80Ks and mid $90Ks.
- Always consider the cost of living for a city when determining salary requirements. Depending on the cost of living, the salary might sound promising, but if the cost of living is high, you might not be able to sustain your standard of living even with that higher salary.