These Are The 10 Highest Physician Salaries By State

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Physician Salaries By State

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2nd Quintile:
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Without fail, in surveys across basically every demographic, the number one most important aspect of a job for most people is the salary — how much do physicians get paid where I live?

And while there are many things to go into how much you can expect to make, there’s really good data for average salaries for physicians by state across America broken down by seniority level. So while your city may be slightly different than the state average, these averages give you a rough sense of what to expect for your salary.

So to better understand how physician salaries change across America, we decided to take a look the most recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics on average pay for physicians by state.

Additionally, we wanted to adjust the salary based on the cost of living in a state — because your salary goes further in North Carolina than it does in California.

The state with the best salary for physicians after this adjustment? That would be Mississippi. Here’s a quick snapshot of the top ten states for physician salaries:

Let’s take a look at how we got here and a full ranking of all the states.

How we determined physician pay by state

As we mentioned earlier, we took the average annual salary data for physicians from the 2015 Bureau of Labor Statistics — specifically their “Occupational Employment Statistics”.

However, to make the comparison of salaries apples to apples across states, we also took into account the living wage in each state as defined by MIT.

We then created an index by dividing the average wage for a state by the living wage in that state. As an example, the living wage in California is $57,315 and the average physician pay is $198,380, so our index value would be:

$198,380 / $57,315 = 3.46

We then ranked every state on this criteria with the state with the highest salary index ranking as highest average salary for physicians.

Here’s a look at the full ranking for all states.

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Detailed List Of Physician Salaries By State

Rank	State	Adjusted Salary	Average Wage	Living Wage
1	Mississippi	$244,402	$223,250	$46,084
2	Iowa	$242,126	$234,600	$48,882
3	Kansas	$239,989	$228,590	$48,054
4	Arkansas	$239,296	$211,410	$44,571
5	South Dakota	$233,475	$210,150	$45,410
6	Nebraska	$226,877	$216,200	$48,076
7	Kentucky	$222,965	$191,400	$43,308
8	South Carolina	$218,970	$202,120	$46,568
9	Alabama	$218,969	$198,890	$45,824
10	Georgia	$218,622	$207,770	$47,946
11	Alaska	$218,494	$235,600	$54,400
12	Louisiana	$217,091	$206,440	$47,975
13	Utah	$216,573	$205,720	$47,922
14	Wisconsin	$215,617	$218,480	$51,120
15	Ohio	$211,129	$191,890	$45,853
16	Wyoming	$210,698	$200,260	$47,951
17	Texas	$207,866	$198,430	$48,160
18	Pennsylvania	$207,516	$205,310	$49,914
19	North Dakota	$206,838	$191,930	$46,814
20	Idaho	$206,280	$187,270	$45,801
21	Montana	$205,699	$191,970	$47,083
22	Washington	$202,948	$206,250	$51,271
23	North Carolina	$199,440	$195,980	$49,575
24	New Hampshire	$195,948	$214,020	$55,103
25	Indiana	$191,232	$177,540	$46,838
26	Florida	$190,461	$197,090	$52,206
27	Colorado	$190,182	$202,780	$53,792
28	Hawaii	$189,683	$228,220	$60,700
29	Tennessee	$188,095	$174,430	$46,785
30	West Virginia	$185,062	$164,420	$44,823
31	Minnesota	$184,066	$190,140	$52,115
32	Illinois	$182,764	$189,480	$52,304
33	Michigan	$180,119	$174,360	$48,837
34	Massachusetts	$179,752	$212,210	$59,560
35	Oregon	$176,498	$181,570	$51,900
36	New Mexico	$175,489	$167,140	$48,050
37	Maine	$174,828	$177,790	$51,305
38	California	$174,619	$198,380	$57,315
39	Virginia	$171,458	$184,420	$54,264
40	Missouri	$169,934	$155,480	$46,159
41	Connecticut	$166,802	$196,730	$59,502
42	Arizona	$166,579	$169,520	$51,341
43	Rhode Island	$165,166	$174,300	$53,240
44	Vermont	$160,842	$165,710	$51,977
45	Delaware	$156,712	$164,980	$53,112
46	New Jersey	$156,523	$174,080	$56,109
47	Oklahoma	$155,962	$144,100	$46,613
48	Maryland	$155,579	$179,410	$58,178
49	New York	$155,178	$181,870	$59,128
50	Nevada	$153,242	$160,070	$52,698

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Author

Chris Kolmar

Chris Kolmar is a co-founder of Zippia and the editor-in-chief of the Zippia career advice blog. He has hired over 50 people in his career, been hired five times, and wants to help you land your next job. His research has been featured on the New York Times, Thrillist, VOX, The Atlantic, and a host of local news. More recently, he's been quoted on USA Today, BusinessInsider, and CNBC.

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