Where can I check income data myself, and how often is it updated?
That's a smart instinct — figures like this are only useful if you know where they come from and whether they're stale by the time you read them.
Where to check this yourself, and how often it changes
That's a smart instinct — figures like this are only useful if you know where they come from and whether they're stale by the time you read them.
| Source | What it covers | Update rhythm |
|---|---|---|
| BLS OEWS (occupation code 29-1291, "Acupuncturists") | Employed acupuncturist wages by state — mean, median, 10th/90th percentile | Annual, released each spring; current figures are the May 2025 reference period, released May 2026 |
| Five Branches 2026 TCM CareerGuide — ROI & Real-World Career Trajectories | Career-stage income ranges (associate → independent → owner) for Northern California | School-published; check the page itself for its edition date |
| BLS public API — api.bls.gov | The same underlying data, if you want to query it directly | Same annual spring cycle |
Two honest caveats worth carrying with those numbers, straight from the source notes: BLS only counts salaried/employed acupuncturists — private-practice owners aren't in there at all — and where a state's sample is too small, BLS suppresses the estimate rather than publish an unreliable one (Pennsylvania's is fully suppressed this cycle). So a self-employed practitioner's real income, especially in the early years, won't show up in these tables at all.
We last pulled the BLS figures in 07/2026 and the CareerGuide page in 08/2026 — both are worth a fresh look on the live pages above rather than treating anything quoted elsewhere as current.
Is there a particular state or career stage you're trying to size up?
Sources
- Five Branches University — 2026 Northern California Tcm Careerguide From Roi To Real World Careertrajectories 4 checked 2026-08
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (May 2025) checked 2026-07
Last reviewed: