Despite school districts in many states increasing pay significantly in the last decade, teachers’ wages still are not keeping up with inflation and are lower than other professionals with similar education and experience, according to annual reports released by the National Education Association.
California teachers have the highest pay in the country, making an average of $101,084 a year. The starting salary for new teachers averages about $58,409. Despite that, teachers still make about 80 cents less an hour than other college-educated professionals in the state with similar work experience, according to the NEA. The minimum living wage for the state is $69,601, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
The average teacher’s salary in the U.S. is $72,030 a year, with starting teachers making about $46,526, according to the NEA.
“This hard-won progress is now under threat from the Trump administration’s careless, callous, and reckless actions, and students will pay the price,” said NEA President Becky Pringle in a statement. “Their plans to gut public education will rip funding from public schools and roll back these very same gains to help provide competitive and professional pay to educators.”
The four reports include “Rankings and Estimates,” which ranks average teacher salaries and per-student expenditures by state; “Teacher Salary Benchmark Report,” which offers information on teacher salaries; The “Education Support Professional Earnings Report” offers a pay breakdown for school support staff; and NEA’s “Higher Education Faculty Salary Analysis” examines full-time faculty and graduate assistant salaries at the national, state, and institutional levels.