Speech Language Pathologist Pay in the Great Plains Region

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics' (BLS) most current occupational employment data indicated that nearly 174,000 speech language pathologists (SLPs) were working in the United States as of May 2024.  More than 12,000 of those employed in the U.S. as SLPs resided in the seven-state Great Plains region.  BLS data indicated that the region is one of the weakest in the country for speech language pathologist pay, as no state in the region registered a SLP annual mean wage level above the national average.  Moreover, three Great Plains states ranked among the ten worst states in the country for SLP annual mean wages.  More examination of BLS data from May 2024 reveals the following details about speech language pathologist pay in the Great Plains region:

Speech Language Pathologist Pay in the Great Plains Region

State	# Employed	Annual Mean Wages	Wage Rank*
IA	1,390	$85,230	32nd
KS	1,790	$84,230	36th
MN	3,730	$82,020	42nd
MO	2,700	$84,930	33rd
NE	1,230	$83,880	38th
ND	670	$73,950	48th
SD	510	$69,230	50th
U.S.	173,910	$91,089	-------

(*) annual mean wage ranking among the 50 states and the District of Columbia

Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics OES. Data extracted on June 3, 2025

March 31, 2025, data from the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) revealed that more than 59.7 million Americans lived in communities or settings designated as dental health professional shortage areas (HPSA).  This designation is given to population groups, geographic areas, or facilities where with access to dental care is limited because too few dentists serve the HPSA relative to the size of its population.  Southeastern U.S dental HPSA's were home to over 22.7 million residents, accounting for just over 38% of the entire U.S. population that lived in dental care shortfall areas.  The HRSA estimates that HPSAs in the Southeast would need 4,018 more dentists in order to eliminate the dental care shortfall in the region.  Here is a state-level summary of the Southeast's dental care shortfall:

The Dental Care Shortfall in the Southeast

State	(1) HPSAs	(2) Population	(3) Shortfall
AL	89	751,675	137
AR	132	580,085	103
FL	274	5,911,481	1,259
GA	184	1,963,457	411
KY	208	922,811	209
LA	163	1,869,995	252
MS	148	1,401,634	178
NC	189	2,911,480	576
SC	90	1,557,360	221
TN	143	1,941,163	314
VA	131	2,182,344	223
WV	117	749,549	135
Region	1,868	22,743,034	4,018
U.S.	7,054	59,718,174	10,143

(1) Designated Geographic, Population Group, and Facility HPSAs with a dental care shortfall

(2) Population of designated HPSAs

(3) Dental Care practitioners needed to remove HPSA Designation

Source:  Designated HPSA Quarterly Summary, 3/31/25 (HRSA)