Optometrist Salary

Optometrist earnings will vary due to basic factors like cost of living in the area, type of work environment, experience, and plenty of other variables as well. Many optometrists are self-employed with their own office, but others can work for hospitals, physicians, outpatient care centers, HMO's, surgical centers and other facilities, as all these will affect their earnings. Those with more experience or specialize in certain areas such as vision therapy or sports vision, may earn more due to a lack of other experienced personnel.

Optometry Salary by the Numbers

According to the BLS, the median annual pay for salaried optometrists for May of 2008 was $96,320, which is an increase of a little over $5,000 from the median annual pay for salaried optometrists for May of 2006, which was $91,040. The bottom 10% earned $46,860 or less, and the top 10% earned over $166,000, while the national mean wage was $105,200. Although some optometrists are on salary, the hourly value for the mean wage is $50.58 per hour.

Of course, the numbers for different states and cities will vary accordingly with optometrists in some smaller metro areas making more than some larger ones. For example, Amarillo, TX with a population slightly over 135,000 has a mean annual wage of $163,010 while Jacksonville, FL with a population over 700,000 has a mean annual wage of $118,770. The difference in salary is due to a smaller amount of optometrists who are making more money, which increases the average salary, so it is not safe to assume that an optometrist’s salary in a larger city will be more than a smaller one.

The industry also makes a difference in optometrists salaries and employment services like many other jobs make a higher salary. Other top paying industries for optometrists are physician offices, outpatient care centers, and surgical offices. Self employed optometrists who have a private optometry practice tend to make more, but there is a lot more work involved. Those that also run a retail store along with their practice can make much more as well.

Annual Optometrist Salary by State

Data from May 2008