+1 570 955 3538Dentist Offices in Lehigh County Compared With Raleigh
Lehigh County has 162 dentist offices with paid staff. That is 4.3 per 10,000 residents, which puts it first among the ten Pennsylvania counties here. 37% of the offices have fewer than five employees. Wake County, North Carolina (Raleigh) has 5.0 per 10,000, or 1.2 times the Lehigh rate. The tables below set Lehigh beside nine other Pennsylvania counties and Wake, using Census data for 2023.
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Offices per resident in eleven counties
| County | Dentist offices | Per 10,000 residents | Employees per office | Offices with 1–4 employees | Annual payroll per employee |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wake | 562 | 5.0 | 9.1 | 176 (31%) | $73,466 |
| Lehigh | 162 | 4.3 | 7.3 | 60 (37%) | $60,024 |
| Lackawanna | 83 | 3.8 | 8.0 | 36 (43%) | $57,892 |
| Northampton | 119 | 3.8 | 7.5 | 33 (28%) | $56,751 |
| Carbon | 19 | 2.9 | 5.3 | 9 (47%) | $62,446 |
| Luzerne | 94 | 2.9 | 8.3 | 30 (32%) | $50,498 |
| Monroe | 42 | 2.5 | 10.8 | 16 (38%) | $70,412 |
| Schuylkill | 35 | 2.4 | 6.3 | 10 (29%) | $50,437 |
| Wayne | 11 | 2.1 | 12.9 | 5 (45%) | $56,268 |
| Susquehanna | 7 | 1.8 | 4.7 | 4 (57%) | $29,394 |
| Wyoming | 4 | 1.5 | 5.0 | – | $50,600 |
An office is one dentist location with at least one paid employee. Census adds noise to employee and payroll figures to protect privacy, so read those columns as close estimates. Office counts are not altered. A dash means the Census did not publish the cell.
How big the offices are
| Employees in the office | Lehigh offices | Wake offices |
|---|---|---|
| 1–4 | 60 | 176 |
| 5–9 | 57 | 213 |
| 10–19 | 37 | 135 |
| 20–49 | 8 | 35 |
| 50–99 | – | – |
| 100–249 | – | – |
| 250–499 | – | – |
Both columns count offices, not people. A dash is a size class the Census withheld. Only offices with at least one employee are in the file, so a dentist who works alone with no staff does not appear. In Lehigh the published classes add up to 162 of 162 offices, and 72% have fewer than ten employees. Wake publishes 559 of 562 offices, and 69% of all its offices have fewer than ten. Use the table to judge your own size against your market, not as a target.
What Lehigh dentists are paid and employ
The BLS counts 155 private dentist-office establishments and 1,195 jobs in Lehigh County for the second quarter of 2025, at an average weekly wage of $1,181. The highest average of the eleven counties with a published figure is $1,527 in Wake, and the lowest is $599 in Susquehanna. The Census table above shows 1,184 employees, and the gap between the two sources is a matter of date and definition. Do not add them.
Map: county borders from U.S. Census TIGERweb. Shading: dentist offices per 10,000 residents, five groups of two counties each, darker means higher. The thick outline marks Lehigh County. Base map: OpenStreetMap contributors.
What this means for a practice owner
Your neighbors are close. With 4.3 offices per 10,000 residents, a typical Lehigh resident has several offices to choose from. The ten counties span 1.5 to 4.3.
Raleigh is a different scale. Wake County has 562 offices and 5,117 dental employees, against 162 and 1,184 in Lehigh. Wake's population figure comes from a different source, so the per-resident rate is a rough comparison.
Small offices dominate. When most offices have a handful of staff, the front desk answers the phone and also checks patients in. A missed call is a missed new patient. Our review request automation and AI visibility audit are built for offices that size.
Break-even calculator
Where the numbers come from
- U.S. Census Bureau, County Business Patterns (CBP) 2023, county file, all industries. Open data: census.gov/programs-surveys/cbp. Pulled 2026-10-06.
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW), 2025 Q2, private ownership, county files. Open data: data.bls.gov/cew. Pulled 2026-10-06.
- U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 5-year estimates 2019–2023, table B01003 (population). Pulled 2026-10-06.
- USAspending.gov, spending by geography for Wake County, North Carolina (population field), federal fiscal year 2025. Used only as the Wake County population. Pulled 2026-10-06.
- U.S. Census Bureau, TIGERweb county boundaries. Pulled 2026-10-06.
FAQ
How many dentist offices are in Lehigh County?
The Census County Business Patterns file for 2023 lists 162 dentist offices with paid employees. The BLS count for 2025 Q2 is 155, because it uses another definition and date.
Which county has the most dentist offices per resident?
Of the eleven, Wake County, with 5.0 per 10,000 residents. Of the ten Pennsylvania counties, it is Lehigh County.
Does this count dentists who work alone?
No. The file counts locations that pay at least one employee. A solo dentist with no staff is missing.
Why compare Lehigh with Raleigh?
Raleigh's Wake County is a large metro with a growing population and many more offices. It shows what a larger market looks like next to a mid-size one. The comparison does not mean the two markets behave the same.
Where do the Wake County residents come from?
From the population field in a USAspending response, not from the same Census survey as the Pennsylvania counties. Treat per-resident comparisons with Wake as rough.
