Tourists flock to South Dakota every year to visit Mount Rushmore, Wind Cave and the Badlands, but as a North Dakotan, you have those gems in your backyard. The state’s major industries include tourism, agriculture, bioscience, outdoor recreation, oil and gas production and professional and business services.
South Dakota’s unemployment rate for December 2020 was 3%, down .3 percentage points YOY and almost 4 points lower than the national unemployment rate for the same time period of 6.7%, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
South Dakota also is one of the 10 states that doesn’t levy a personal income tax on its residents. The median household income in 2019 is lower than the national income at $58,275 and $62,843, respectively, according to U.S. Census data.
If you’re looking to start a career in financial planning or finance in South Dakota, you’ll want to consider whether you want to work with clients as a fee-based advisor, charging fees for your services, or a commission-based advisor that works based on commission sales of products and services. If you’re a fiduciary, you’ll be required to make decisions based on the best interests of your clients rather than your own business interests.
Certified Financial Planners (CFPs) are fiduciaries, and there are 174 CFPs employed in South Dakota, which is 0.2% of the national population of CFPs, according to the CFP Board.
BLS salary data for South Dakota is broken into the East South Dakota nonmetropolitan area and Sioux Falls for financial advisors, stockbrokers and life insurance/annuity producers in the state.
Financial Advisor Salary in South Dakota
There are 250 financial advisors employed in South Dakota, but the BLS only provided salary data for Sioux Falls. The annual mean salary for advisors in Sioux Falls in 2019 was $83,450, which corresponds to an hourly median wage of $32.05. Note that the hourly wage doesn’t represent the rate an advisor would charge clients, it’s just a breakdown of the annual salary. The salary for experienced agents in the 75th percentile is only marginally higher at $83,610, but the 90th percentile salary was a great deal higher at $143,810 per year.
Stockbroker Salary in South Dakota
Compensation for stockbrokers includes a low annual mean salary of $64,650 in the East South Dakota nonmetropolitan area to a high salary of $106,730 in Sioux Falls, and salaries for experienced brokers in the 90th percentile are more than two and three times higher than the state median salary at $123,520 in the eastern nonmetropolitan area and $202,210 in Sioux Falls.
Life/Annuity Producer Salary in South Dakota
Salaries for insurance agents in South Dakota are also well above the state’s median wage at $62,680 in the East South Dakota nonmetropolitan area and $74,300 in Sioux Falls. Salaries in the 75th percentile for experienced agents are in the $80K range, but they really jump at the 90th percentile: $98,240 in the eastern region and $135,320 in Sioux Falls.
(Salary and job growth data reported by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics in May 2019 for personal financial advisors; securities, commodities and financial services sales agents; and insurance sales agents. Figures represent national data, not school-specific information. Conditions in your area may vary. Information accessed February 2021.)