Genetic Counselors Salary and Pay
How much do Genetic Counselors make?
Genetic Counselors pay a median of $98,910 a year in the BLS May 2024 survey, with a mean of $102,890 across 3,510 counted jobs. Half of all workers in the occupation earn between $87,060 and $113,220.
What Genetic Counselors actually pay, from the federal wage survey: a $98,910 median, the full percentile ladder, every state's table, and the metros where the jobs and the money sit, on one page.
Updated November 5, 2026
Salary converter for this occupation
Every level in the picker is a published BLS figure for Genetic Counselors, not a national average. Annual-to-hourly conversions divide by 2,080 hours, the survey's full-time year; top-coded levels use $239,200, the floor BLS prints, so the true figure is higher.
The national wage ladder (BLS OEWS, May 2024)
| Pay level | Annual wage | Hourly wage |
|---|---|---|
| 10th percentile | $78,680 | $37.83 |
| 25th percentile | $87,060 | $41.86 |
| Median (50th) | $98,910 | $47.55 |
| 75th percentile | $113,220 | $54.44 |
| 90th percentile | $137,780 | $66.24 |
The five rows are five different workers in the same occupation, from the 10th percentile ($78,680) to the 90th ($137,780). BLS suppresses cells that fail its reliability rules (n/p here) and caps the highest wages at $239,200+ a year or $115.00+ an hour; in this ladder that top code appears at the very top rows only.
Employment and concentration
BLS counted 3,510 Genetic Counselors jobs in May 2024, which is 0.00% of all U.S. employment in the survey. Work is most concentrated in Vermont, where the location quotient is 4.45, meaning the occupation holds 4.45 times its national share of local jobs. California employs the most people outright, 440 of them, and the three largest state employers together account for 28.5% of the national total.
Read the ladder as a career path in numbers: $87,060 at the 25th percentile, $98,910 at the middle, $113,220 at the 75th. The full 10-to-90 range runs $59,100, a ratio of 1.8 to 1. Where a specific job offer lands on that range says more about the role's level than the occupation's headline median does.
Pay by state
Sorted by employment, the table below puts California first at 440 jobs; sorted by median pay instead, California would lead at $135,090. Both orderings are printed in one table:
| State | Employment | Jobs per 1,000 | Location quotient | Mean annual | Median annual |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| California | 440 | 0.0 | 1.08 | $140,010 | $135,090 |
| New York | 320 | 0.0 | 1.46 | $101,880 | $100,110 |
| Massachusetts | 240 | 0.1 | 2.87 | $101,440 | $93,910 |
| New Jersey | 220 | 0.1 | 2.29 | $109,680 | $120,550 |
| Pennsylvania | 210 | 0.0 | 1.54 | $94,110 | $92,320 |
| Minnesota | 170 | 0.1 | 2.62 | $97,500 | $99,090 |
| Ohio | 130 | 0.0 | 1.06 | $90,620 | $92,310 |
| Virginia | 130 | 0.0 | 1.39 | $110,730 | $106,060 |
| Washington | 130 | 0.0 | 1.61 | $102,630 | $99,820 |
| North Carolina | 110 | 0.0 | 1.00 | $88,960 | $87,850 |
| Wisconsin | 100 | 0.0 | 1.53 | $91,790 | $87,240 |
| Florida | 90 | 0.0 | 0.39 | $96,720 | $99,110 |
| Illinois | 90 | 0.0 | 0.66 | $93,140 | $89,980 |
| Texas | 80 | 0.0 | 0.27 | $96,420 | $97,480 |
| Connecticut | 50 | 0.0 | 1.42 | $93,570 | $93,920 |
| Michigan | 50 | 0.0 | 0.46 | $93,100 | $90,660 |
| Utah | 50 | 0.0 | 1.20 | $95,640 | $91,620 |
| Arizona | 40 | 0.0 | 0.55 | $95,410 | $99,270 |
| Delaware | 40 | 0.1 | 3.65 | n/p | n/p |
| District of Columbia | 40 | 0.1 | 2.66 | $95,900 | $87,520 |
| Indiana | 40 | 0.0 | 0.52 | $77,590 | $81,760 |
| Maryland | 40 | 0.0 | 0.68 | $101,910 | $102,960 |
| South Carolina | 40 | 0.0 | 0.87 | $100,110 | $105,500 |
| Colorado | 30 | 0.0 | 0.49 | $103,100 | $104,840 |
| Missouri | 30 | 0.0 | 0.45 | $89,980 | $88,130 |
| Vermont | 30 | 0.1 | 4.45 | $106,760 | $106,000 |
| Tennessee | n/p | n/p | n/p | $88,090 | $90,780 |
The occupation in context
Ranked against all 826 published occupations, Genetic Counselors stands number 774 by employment and number 132 by median pay. Inside its own major group, Healthcare Practitioners and Technical Occupations, the group median wage is $98,340 across 71 detailed occupations, so this occupation pays 1% more than its group median, and it supplies 0.0% of the group's 9,592,720 jobs. In 12 of the 26 states with a published median, the state median beats the national median of $98,910, which is the single best quick test of whether this occupation's pay is set nationally or locally: a high count means local markets regularly outbid the national figure.
Metropolitan areas: where the jobs and the pay sit
New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ is the largest metro employer with 410 jobs, 11.7% of the national total. Below, the biggest employers come first; the pay table after it only counts metros with 500 or more jobs in the occupation, so its leader is a real market and not a statistical artifact.
Largest metro employers
| Metropolitan area | Employment | Mean annual | Median annual |
|---|---|---|---|
| New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ | 410 | $108,070 | $103,060 |
| Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH | 200 | $98,780 | $93,770 |
| San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA | 130 | $151,400 | $149,850 |
| Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD | 120 | $105,370 | $99,330 |
| Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA | 100 | $125,630 | $130,310 |
| Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, MN-WI | 100 | $96,660 | $98,440 |
| Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA | 100 | $105,240 | $100,690 |
| San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA | 90 | $151,590 | $159,960 |
| Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV | 90 | $110,090 | $104,100 |
| Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN | 80 | $92,610 | $89,980 |
What the median pay looks like as a budget
As a household number, $98,910 a year is $8,242 a month gross, $3,804 every two weeks, $1,902 a week. Moving from the 25th percentile ($87,060) to the 75th ($113,220) is worth $26,160 a year, which is the realistic size of the experience and specialization premium inside this occupation. The next step from a gross figure is a net one: run the $8,242 monthly figure through the paycheck calculator applies your state's taxes, the salary calculator compares two offers in any unit, and the raise vs inflation calculator tells you whether a nominal raise is a real one.
To place a real offer: a salary of $108,801 would sit between the median ($98,910) and the 75th percentile ($113,220), inside the top half but outside the top quarter of this occupation's ladder. An offer at the 25th percentile, $87,060, is $11,850 under the median, the typical size of the discount attached to entry-level or low-cost-market postings in this field.
Related occupations in Healthcare Practitioners and Technical Occupations
The occupations BLS groups with this one, by size: Radiation Therapists, Cardiologists, Nuclear Medicine Technologists, Recreational Therapists, Audiologists, Orthopedic Surgeons, Except Pediatric. Every one of the 826 published occupations is indexed on the Careers hub.
Frequently asked questions
What is the median salary for Genetic Counselors?
$98,910 a year ($47.55), the middle wage among 3,510 counted workers in the BLS May 2024 estimates. The 75th percentile is $113,220 and the 90th is $137,780.
Where are Genetic Counselors jobs concentrated?
By headcount, California leads with 440 jobs; by concentration, Vermont leads with a location quotient of 4.45, meaning the occupation is 4.45 times as dense there as nationally.
What do the top 10% of Genetic Counselors earn?
$137,780 a year or more. The gap between the 90th percentile and the median ($98,910) is the size of the senior and specialist premium in this occupation.
How does EveryCalc get Genetic Counselors pay data?
From the Bureau of Labor Statistics OEWS bulk files for May 2024 (national, state, and metropolitan), downloaded November 5, 2026. Nothing on this page is self-reported by workers or scraped from job postings.