Traditionally, social work has not been considered a lucrative field. But there are many positions within the broader scope of social work that are relatively high-paying, with salaries that stretch into the six figures. Median hourly pay for social workers was a tad more than $28 per hour in 2023, according to the most recent available data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics—that was actually higher than the median hourly wage for all positions, which was $23.11.
While that may sound enticing to prospective social workers, those in the field say that finding a high-paying position may take a long time, and a lot of education, to nail down. “If you want to get rich quickly, social work is not the field for you,” says Jillian Amodio, a licensed masters social worker (LMSW) at Maryland-based Waypoint Wellness Center. “Clinical practice, research, policy—those fields tend to have higher salaries, to begin with, and typically require higher licensure,” she says of some of the generally higher-paying social work jobs, “but a lot depends on your level of education.”
