The ASWB Pass-Rate Data and Why States Reacted

For decades the social work licensing exams were defended on one number: the overall pass rate. Then, in August 2022, ASWB released the breakdown that schools, NASW chapters and test-takers had been asking for. It showed the overall number hid very different outcomes for different groups, and it set off a policy fight that is still running.

What did the 2022 report actually show?

The 2022 ASWB Exam Pass Rate Analysis looked at test-takers by race and ethnicity, gender, age and primary language, mostly for 2018 through 2021. On the Clinical exam, the one most clinicians care about, first-time pass rates averaged over those four years were:

• White test-takers: 83.9 percent
• Multiracial: 79.9 percent
• Asian: 72 percent
• Hispanic/Latino: 65.1 percent
• Native American/Indigenous peoples: 62.9 percent
• Black: 45 percent

Eventual pass rates, counting people who passed on a later attempt, were higher for everyone but kept the same order: 90.7 percent for white test-takers and 57.0 percent for Black test-takers.

The Masters exam looked much the same (85.8 percent first-time for white test-takers, 44.5 percent for Black test-takers). The Bachelors gap was the widest in absolute terms: 76.2 percent against 33.3 percent.

Age mattered too. On the Clinical exam, first-time pass rates fell from 80.1 percent for test-takers aged 18 to 29 to 62.8 percent for those 50 and older. By primary language, first-time Clinical pass rates were 76.2 percent for test-takers whose primary language was English and 59.1 percent for everyone else. Women passed the Clinical slightly more often than men, 75.3 against 72.8 percent.

Was the gap narrowing or widening?

It depended on the exam. On the Clinical, the report shows first-time pass rates for Black test-takers rising over 2018 to 2021. On the Bachelors, the direction was the opposite. ASWB's appendix table shows first-time Bachelors pass rates for Black test-takers falling every year, from 37.5 percent in 2018 to 34.9, 33.2 and then 31.6 percent in 2021, while rates for white test-takers held between 75.7 and 77.0 percent. The Bachelors groups were small for some categories (fewer than 100 Asian, multiracial and Native American test-takers a year), and the report flags small samples as a limitation, but the Black and white samples were in the hundreds and thousands.

What did ASWB itself conclude?

The report did not say the exams were valid and leave it there. It pointed to similar gaps on other professions' licensing exams, to census data on income and educational inequities, and to "implicit factors such as stereotype threat," and it concluded that "ensuring equal opportunity for all to demonstrate their competence on the licensing exams cannot be accomplished solely through the examination program itself." In the same passage it said the exams "must continue to reflect the highest standards of validity and reliability." Both halves of that sentence shaped what came next.

How did the profession respond?

Quickly and not in one direction.

NASW. NASW said the data confirmed concerns it had raised for years. In February 2023 it announced it opposed the ASWB exams, citing "significant disparities in pass rates for prospective social workers of color, older adults, and those who speak English as a second language," and said it would target "removal of non-independent social work practice exams." The same statement said NASW would oppose the Social Work Licensure Compact then being drafted unless it was revised to remove the ASWB exam requirement.

States. Illinois had moved before the data came out. Senate Bill 1632 (Public Act 102-0326), signed in August 2021, dropped the ASWB exam for the Illinois LSW from January 1, 2022, while keeping the Clinical exam for the LCSW. Others followed after 2022, mostly for non-clinical licenses: Utah (2023) for its certified social worker and social service worker, Colorado (2024) for its LSW, the District of Columbia (2025) for its LGSW, and Connecticut with a temporary suspension for the LMSW that ran out on January 1, 2026. Minnesota went furthest, creating a provisional route without the exam for every level, including the clinical LICSW, from October 1, 2024. Details are in states that dropped the ASWB exam.

ASWB. It defended the exams as valid and kept them, but changed a good deal around them. It commissioned outside research, including a series from Rutgers researchers Joy Kim and Michael Joo, ran a new practice analysis, and rebuilt every exam. The 2026 versions that launched on August 3, 2026 are shorter (122 questions instead of 170), use more three-option questions and lean harder on applied knowledge. ASWB's guidebook says every pretest question is checked for differential item functioning, meaning a question that performs differently for different demographic groups, and any question flagged for it is deleted. See what changed in August 2026.

Do the gaps mean the exam is biased?

That is the argument, and the evidence does not settle it.

The Kim and Joo report on the Clinical exam, prepared for ASWB and covering U.S. first-time test-takers from 2018 to 2022, found that pass rates also tracked education and work history. People who started with an associate's degree, waited longer after the MSW to test, or attended smaller or less selective programs passed less often. The authors estimated that if Black and Hispanic/Latino examinees had the same demographic, educational, employment and community characteristics as white examinees, the Black-white gap would shrink by about 20 percent and the Hispanic/Latino-white gap by about 28 percent. Most of the gap, in other words, remained after those controls.

The report argues that group differences "do not necessarily indicate that the exams are biased" and reflect wider inequalities. Critics answer that a test a profession requires should not reproduce those inequalities at the licensing gate, especially for licenses that do not authorize independent clinical practice. Both positions are in the record. Neither has persuaded the other side.

Has anything improved since?

ASWB's own year-by-year figures in the 2022 report showed first-time Clinical pass rates for Black test-takers increasing 7 percent from 2018 to 2021, in the report's words, with smaller increases for Hispanic/Latino and multiracial test-takers. ASWB's current pass-rate page reports 2025 first-time pass rates for all test-takers of 75.7 percent on the Clinical, 73.9 percent on the Masters, 70.4 percent on the Bachelors and 65.0 percent on the Advanced Generalist. ASWB publishes state-by-state and program-by-program summaries on the same page.

Whether the 2026 exams narrow the demographic gaps will not be known until ASWB publishes data on them.

What does this mean if you are testing now?

Practically, three things.

1. The exam is still the main road to a clinical license. Minnesota's provisional route and Illinois's LCSW alternative (an exam attempt plus 3,000 extra supervised hours) are exceptions, not the rule, and the Social Work Compact's clinical category requires the ASWB Clinical exam unless you were licensed before your state required one.
2. Skipping an optional exam has a cost later. If your state lets you get a non-clinical license without the exam, that license may not qualify you for a multistate license when the compact opens, and some states you might move to will still require the score. A pass you have is a pass you can transfer.
3. Use what the data suggests. The Kim and Joo findings that waiting longer after the MSW correlates with lower pass rates are not destiny, but they are a reason not to let the exam drift. If English is not your primary language, ask your board about nonstandard testing arrangements before you register; they have to be approved first.

If the approval paperwork is what is holding up your test date, our ASWB Exam Approval & Registration service handles that part; see board approval before you register or get in touch.