Best States for Pharmacists in 2026: California Tops List as Pay and Employment Diverge

Across the top ten states for pharmacists, LaborCove’s rankings show that high salaries and large employment counts do not always move together. Alaska has the highest median salary in this group at $167,310 but relatively low employment, while California pairs a high salary with the largest employment count and the top Geography Score. Most of the top-ranked states have median salaries higher than the national pharmacist median of $140,910, but Texas at $138,260 and Florida at $135,970 are below that national benchmark despite appearing in the top ten. The Geography Scores therefore reflect a combination of factors rather than salary alone, and the states with similar scores can differ substantially in both salary levels and pharmacist employment counts.

For 2026, pharmacists in the United States have a reported national median annual salary of $140,910 and employment of 321,970. National employment for this occupation is projected to grow by 4.6%, which frames the overall environment in which individual state markets operate. Within that national picture, the ten LaborCove‑ranked states differ both from one another and from the national benchmarks. Several of the top states report median salaries above the national median, while two fall below it, illustrating that a high state ranking does not guarantee salary above the national figure. The ten highlighted states also vary in employment scale, from hundreds of pharmacist roles in the smallest state market in this group to tens of thousands in the largest, showing that high Geography Scores are compatible with very different market sizes.

California is ranked #1 on LaborCove’s list of best states for pharmacists, with a Geography Score of 85.06, the highest among the top ten. California’s median pharmacist salary is $164,610, which is higher than the national median of $140,910. California also has an employment count of 34,030 pharmacists, which is the largest employment figure among the top ten states and matches the largest employment market value noted in the evidence. This combination of the top Geography Score, a salary above the national median, and the largest reported pharmacist employment distinguishes California from the other ranked states. Compared with other states in the top ten, California’s salary level is not the absolute highest, but its salary and employment figures together are notably above the national benchmarks and above several other ranked states on each of those dimensions.

Several states in the top ten have median pharmacist salaries higher than California’s $164,610 figure, even though they rank below it in the LaborCove results. Alaska reports the highest median salary in the group at $167,310 and ranks #3 with a Geography Score of 53.49. Oregon, ranked #4 with a Geography Score of 51.50, has a median salary of $165,960, which is also higher than California’s. Hawaii at #6 offers a median salary of $163,220, which is lower than California’s salary but still well above the national median. These three states differ sharply from California in employment scale. Alaska has 560 pharmacists, Oregon has 3,250, and Hawaii has 1,190, all below California’s 34,030 pharmacists. Even among these three, employment ranges from hundreds in Alaska to a few thousand in Oregon. Washington and Colorado also align with this high-salary pattern. Washington, ranked #2 with a Geography Score of 54.94, has a median salary of $160,610 and employment of 7,350. Colorado, ranked #9 with a Geography Score of 48.25, reports a median salary of $156,030 and employment of 4,560. Both salaries are above the national median and below California’s salary level, with employment counts smaller than California’s but larger than Alaska’s.

Among the top ten, New York, Texas, and Florida stand out for their comparatively large pharmacist employment counts. New York, ranked #5 with a Geography Score of 51.07, reports 19,760 pharmacists. Texas, ranked #8 with a Geography Score of 50.16, has 24,700 pharmacists. Florida, ranked #10 with a Geography Score of 41.65, has 21,540 pharmacists. All three are well below California in employment but clearly above states such as Alaska, Hawaii, Oregon, Colorado, and Minnesota. Their salary levels show a different pattern when compared with the national benchmark. New York’s median pharmacist salary is $142,090, which is slightly higher than the national median of $140,910. Texas reports a median salary of $138,260, and Florida reports $135,970, with both figures below the national median. These three states therefore illustrate that high employment counts can coexist with salaries that are close to, or in the case of Texas and Florida below, the national median pharmacist salary, while still placing within LaborCove’s top ten rankings for this occupation.

Minnesota, ranked #7 with a Geography Score of 50.20, sits near the middle of the top ten in both ranking and employment scale. The state reports 6,310 pharmacists, which is higher than employment in Alaska, Hawaii, Oregon, and Colorado, but lower than employment in California, New York, Texas, and Florida. Minnesota’s median pharmacist salary is $159,740, which is above the national median of $140,910. Its salary level is also lower than the salaries reported in Alaska, Oregon, California, Washington, and Hawaii, but higher than those in New York, Texas, Florida, and Colorado. Placed alongside its peers, Minnesota shows how an intermediate employment count can pair with a salary that is clearly above the national median, while its Geography Score is similar in magnitude to several other states in the middle of the top ten rankings.

LaborCove builds these state rankings for pharmacists from authoritative labor‑market datasets combined with LaborCove’s proprietary Geography Score methodology. For each state, we use the supplied median annual salary and employment counts for pharmacists, along with additional quantified inputs, to generate a single Geography Score and rank order. The national median salary, national employment, and national projected employment growth rate of 4.6% provide occupational context and are not applied as state‑level growth estimates. Geography Scores summarize multiple data points, but the internal weighting of each factor is not disclosed and should not be inferred from the rankings alone. These rankings are one input into a career decision rather than a prescription. Pharmacists should weigh the numeric comparisons here—such as salary differences, employment scale, and relative Geography Scores—alongside their own priorities and information outside the scope of this dataset.