subject: _:node8e111095b6f2ff223774e42af5d335c
obj: "\nIt\u2019s very hard to get an accurate picture of the social work workforce\u2013there are no good studies of it. The NASW one is the best attempt, but it has many problems, the most important of which is that it used people who belong to major social work audiences as it\u2019s data source\u2013the reality is that most social workers don\u2019t join professional social work organizations. \nThe indeed.com data also has significant flaws. The title \u201Csocial worker\u201D is not a protected title, that is, anyone can use it for anything\u2013it\u2019s not tied to a professional degree. So the jobs they report are not positions filled by people with a social work degree. \nThere are many social workers employed in positions that aren\u2019t classified as social work positions. For example, one of my faculty members told me today that she met a social worker who was the CEO of a hospice program. That job didn\u2019t require a social work degree, but a social work degree qualifies you to have that job.\nThere are some general principles when it comes to salaries for clinical positions:1) the private, for profit sector tends to pay more than the non-profit sector2) government jobs tend to pay more than non-profit positions, and sometimes than the private for profit jobs (depending on the government type, e.g. Fed, State, County & your geography).3) generally, if you want to make more money, you will need to go into supervisory and management positions \nHowever, salary money is only part of the picture. One of the lowest paying jobs in our region is an entry level MSW position at Catholic Charities. However, those positions are also incredibly rich training environments. Social workers get years of specialized, in-depth family therapy training and supervision(mirrored room type supervision). It\u2019s hard to put a price on that.\nYou can negotiate salaries, but there are constraints on that\u2013do your research before hand. Non-profits that receive government contract money to serve clients who have no resources are generally more restricted in the salaries they can offer (often it\u2019s retricted in their contract)\u2013generally that\u2019s true for non-profits who are relying on government contract money. Non-profits who are doing more fee-for-service can pay more, but they also will want to put their big money into fully licensed social workers (LCSW in NY State), than they will into a new graduate. \nWhat gets complicated about the above is that a given agency can have many programs and many funding sources\u2013the pay scales might be tied to the particular program for a job with.\nFinally there are so many other factors that affect the quality of your work life\u2013things like: room for creativity, quality of supervision, professional development money, required # of units of service per week, amount of paperwork at the agency, flexibility in your schedule, variety of work experiences, etc. Sometimes you can negotiate more on those things if you come up against a brick wall with salary.\n"