I just got out of an interview with a mental health agency. He asked my preferred salary requirements first and I worked my way to having him admit to their salary first – $50k/yr. In the city the job is located in, the living wage is about $52k after taxes. This isn't unusual for job postings I'm seeing in my field – either $50k or $35/hr. Neither of which are livable.
My degree is in clinical mental health counseling (aka therapy school). I've spent the past two years (60 credits) so burnt out over the workload, internship (required for the degree), and my part-time job just so I can barely make ends meet. I don't know where the joke comes from about therapists being in it for the money because my professors would not shut up about how we're not in this field for the money. And I'm not in it for the money, but the bare minimum for a Master's degree should be not living paycheck to paycheck. When my supervisor was looking for jobs a decade ago, she got a job at the salary I'm being offered and the COL where she lives is significantly lower. We are the lowest paid field in the healthcare industry and yet I'm expected to be able to know everything about every culture and disorder and any potential aspect of a person's life but yet I can barely afford to rent an apartment.
Therapists in community mental health centers, which often serve low-income populations, are so overworked and burnt out that they can't properly provide care to their clients. It's no wonder so many people have negative experiences with therapists. And compassion fatigue is so real in this field. It can be so emotionally draining to hear all the stuff people go through every day, multiple times a day indefinitely. And for $35/hour? For $50k/year? It doesn't make any sense. We're worth more so much more than that.
Part of what the guy said in the interview was acknowledging a shortage in healthcare workers. You would think they would want to increase the salary in order to make themselves more competitive, but no. I've just started in the field and am already burnt out. I love the field and my work with clients, but it's such an underappreciated and thankless field that it makes me wish I liked accounting or computer science.