Peer Support Specialist Salary in Substance Abuse

Substance abuse treatment in general is not a field you enter because you are trying to get rich. That’s even more true for those dedicated souls who take up the cause through peer support counseling. Having already experienced a substance use disorder (SUD) personally and come out the other side, or at least having come very close to the painful reality of it by seeing a close loved one go through it, their commitment and sense of mission is enormous.

But even the most dedicated peer support specialist has to put food on the table. While many peer support counselors work part-time, effectively giving back to the community that helped rescue them, there are also many who rely on the job as a primary means of support.

In any case, you need to know what to expect from the paycheck you’ll be bringing home as a peer support specialist. That number is a sum of many different factors, from location to experience to education.

Identifying the Most Reliable Source of Data for Peer Support Specialist Salary Levels Across the Country

Peer support specialists occupy a pretty unique niche in substance abuse counseling. They aren’t clinical counselors and aren’t expected to get the full range of training and on-the-job experience as those roles require. It’s a unique role so they don’t really have counterparts in other fields that you could look to for comparable salaries when making an estimate. They often work part-time and may not consider peer counseling to be their primary or final career.

These are the kinds of complications that make it tricky to define peer support in a stand-alone category, even for the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the agency responsible for delineating American job categories and collating data on salaries and employment.

Rather than establishing a category devoted to substance abuse peer counselors, BLS drops them into the much larger category for social and human services assistants.

Social and human services assistants are full-time employees who typically qualify for the role through some combination of short-term on-the-job training and specific training delivered through a certificate course. And, they often hold professional certification. In all these ways, this makes it a category that’s very well aligned with peer support specialists.

BLS defines the role as one that involves working in rehabilitation for nonprofits, private social services providers, and government agencies in a job that may involve working off-hours on nights and weekends. That’s starting to sound like a peer support specialist more and more.

It’s not a perfect one-for-one match, but it’s clear in this definition that it’s among the jobs included in this broader classification, so it’s the one we relied on for the salary data we extracted.

How Much Does a Peer Support Specialist Make?

Looking right at the national average number for social and human services assistants, the average annual salary published in 2023 was $44,240 per year. The median, which is generally recognized as a better metric for understanding what you can expect to earn, came in pretty close to that at $41,410.

Peer recovery specialists can work in any environment where addiction is regularly treated. But they are more in-demand, and more highly paid, in some of those environments than others.

Many peer recovery specialists are found in environments such as residential care facilities, where the median salary for these professionals is $37,500 annually.

Similarly, specialists at community and vocational rehabilitation services earn a median of $38,210 per year. In individual and family services it’s a bit higher at $40,340.

Working for government sponsored recovery programs, where most peer support specialists find jobs, salaries were the highest, with a median of $46,720 in state agencies and even more for those working in local city and county agencies where the median comes in at $48,880.

Regional Demand Influences Peer Recovery Specialist Salary Rates

Just like any other sort of job, pay rates for peer support specialists are influenced by location. Living in any high cost-of-living area will push salaries up for all sorts of jobs. Similarly, in areas with lower living expenses, positions are listed with lower starting salary offers.

There is also a regional supply and demand that comes into play, so that areas that need more peer support staff but don’t have enough qualified people to fill those roles tend to pay more.

These are the average salaries for the BLS category for social and human services assistants in a range of metro areas across the country where the highest employment levels are found for this role:

Metro	Annual Average	Hourly Average
New York	$49,960	$24.02
Los Angeles	$52,320	$25.15
Chicago	$44,390	$21.35
Philadelphia	$46,640	$21.94
Boston	$48,110	$23.13
Minneapolis	$40,350	$22.45
San Francisco	$55,780	$25.23
Washington DC	$47,350	$22.77
Portland, OR	$48,040	$23.10

Though salaries are pretty consistent across the board, there’s a clear relationship between higher salaries and the metro areas known for a higher cost of living.

Shown here is a more comprehensive state-by-state breakdown of salary levels and hourly rates for the median through top ten percent for social and human services assistants:

Area Name	Employment	Hourly mean wage	Annual mean wage	Hourly 90th percentile wage	Annual 90th percentile wage
Alabama	3200	15.70	32660	21.56	44840
Alaska	1280	22.50	46800	29.56	61480
Arizona	6330	19.47	40490	23.97	49860
Arkansas	3180	18.01	37460	22.39	46570
California	55220	24.84	51660	35.43	73690
Colorado	4380	22.21	46190	29.84	62080
Connecticut	8280	21.64	45010	28.48	59230
Delaware	1040	18.86	39220	22.91	47640
District of Columbia	1220	28.51	59290	39.48	82120
Florida	19570	19.98	41560	26.72	55590
Georgia	10190	17.63	36660	23.83	49560
Guam	190	17.37	36130	24.63	51230
Hawaii	2480	19.72	41020	24.44	50830
Idaho	2420	21.48	44680	27.28	56740
Illinois	21400	21.60	44930	28.84	59990
Indiana	11000	19.23	39990	24.50	50950
Iowa	4990	19.40	40360	26.47	55070
Kansas	5240	18.66	38810	23.77	49430
Kentucky	4970	18.29	38050	24.85	51690
Louisiana	2200	16.10	33480	23.02	47890
Maine	4890	21.03	43750	24.46	50870
Maryland	6150	20.67	42990	28.36	58990
Massachusetts	15150	23.30	48460	35.27	73360
Michigan	12600	18.80	39100	24.44	50840
Minnesota	12260	22.31	46400	29.04	60410
Mississippi	2200	15.34	31900	22.24	46260
Missouri	4630	18.42	38310	23.11	48080
Montana	1810	16.54	34410	21.38	44470
Nebraska	1780	17.73	36870	22.09	45940
Nevada	2470	19.49	40550	24.24	50410
New Hampshire	2350	20.27	42150	25.33	52690
New Jersey	17090	24.09	50110	35.50	73850
New Mexico	2840	20.21	42030	27.56	57320
New York	32780	22.58	46970	30.69	63830
North Carolina	5330	19.93	41440	28.58	59450
North Dakota	1100	22.23	46240	30.75	63960
Ohio	11700	19.83	41250	27.46	57120
Oklahoma	2200	17.71	36830	24.19	50320
Oregon	11670	22.93	47690	29.17	60670
Pennsylvania	22150	20.94	43550	28.49	59270
Puerto Rico	6640	16.27	33850	27.96	58150
Rhode Island	2450	21.31	44330	28.36	59000
South Carolina	3290	18.12	37700	25.90	53860
South Dakota	840	17.05	35470	21.33	44370
Tennessee	4210	18.71	38920	24.33	50600
Texas	21050	20.45	42530	28.58	59450
Utah	6140	19.06	39640	24.21	50360
Vermont	1720	20.56	42770	25.61	53280
Virgin Islands	70	17.90	37230	26.81	55760
Virginia	10180	19.42	40400	24.93	51850
Washington	6940	23.49	48870	30.40	63220
West Virginia	3150	17.26	35900	22.53	46860
Wisconsin	6790	21.74	45210	31.58	65690
Wyoming	810	19.04	39610	24.37	50690

Most peer support specialists would naturally find work in the very same communities and neighborhoods they already live in. But maybe you’re thinking about getting out of your home town to distance yourself from the people and places you once used as part of your own recovery process. If that’s the case, then salary information from around the country may help influence your decision about where to go.

How Education and Experience Can Factor Into Peer Recovery Specialist Salary Rates

While peer support roles intentionally don’t require high levels of education or a lot of training, that doesn’t mean employers don’t appreciate job candidates who go the extra mile to prepare for the job.

Although you can land these jobs with only a high school diploma, earning National Certified Peer Recovery Support Specialist (NCPRSS) certification through NAADAC – the Association for Addiction Professionals will set you up for success in the role.

A college degree in substance abuse counseling could get you even further. The kind of general liberal arts training that comes with a standard associate or bachelor’s degree in the United States brings some strong benefits:

These are valuable things to have in any kind of job. For a certified peer support specialist position, they may make a tangible difference in your starting salary and potential raises.

There’s no real yardstick for determining this effect, but it’s not unreasonable to assume that you could start pushing more toward the 90th percentile, where peer support specialists make $61,820 or more. At this level, the BLS shows the lowest salary it takes to crack the top 10%, so once you’ve arrived there, within limits, it only goes up.

In a sense, the money you make as a peer recovery specialist is a kind of bonus on top of the real reward: using your individual pain and hard-won knowledge to help others to recover. But it’s also good to know that you can make a living along the way.

2023 US Bureau of Labor Statistics salary and employment figures for Social and Human Services Assistants reflect state and national data, not school-specific information. Conditions in your area may vary. Data accessed April 2024.