Datapoint: Which states have the most licensed psychologists?

In 2018, there were approximately 102,000 active doctoral-level licensed psychologists in the United States—about 31.3 licensed psychologists per 100,000 people.¹

• California (16,900), New York (13,470) and Massachusetts (5,660) had the most licensed psychologists, while South Dakota (160), Wyoming (170) and Alaska (170) had the fewest.
• The District of Columbia (144.1), Massachusetts (81.9) and New York (68.9) had the most licensed psychologists per 100,000 people, while South Carolina (11.5), West Virginia (11.8) and Mississippi (12.1) had the fewest.

¹The National Center for the Analysis of Healthcare Data’s Enhanced State Licensure data was utilized as the primary source for the number of actively licensed psychologists. Only doctoral-level psychologists with active licenses were included. Records from the state licensing boards were deduplicated based on name, address, phone number and email. Psychologists with a single license were counted in the state where the license was issued. Psychologists with multiple licenses were counted in the reported address state of the license with a more recent license issue date. Population estimates were from U.S. Census Bureau (2018). 2018 National and State Population Estimates (www.census.gov/newsroom/press-kits/2018/pop-estimates-national-state.htmlopens in new window).