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At the last "Save Our Schools" rally, Matt Damon said:

So you think job insecurity is what makes me work hard? I want to be an actor. That’s not an incentive. That’s the thing: See, you take this MBA-style thinking, right? It’s the problem with ed policy right now, this intrinsically paternalistic view of problems that are much more complex than that. It’s like saying a teacher is going to get lazy when they have tenure. A teacher wants to teach. I mean, why else would you take a shitty salary and really long hours and do that job unless you really love to do it?

Are teachers paid poorly in the United States compared to other professions?

JWT
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user1873
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  • Can you narrow the focus of this question a bit, as it stands now there are a lot of factors involved with pay and compensation which make this question a bit too broad. – rjzii Sep 06 '12 at 14:02
  • @RobZ, such as? Geographical location, educational level, sex, ... – user1873 Sep 06 '12 at 14:18
  • Hard to say, this question might actually be a bit too broad for the site in general. – rjzii Sep 06 '12 at 14:20
  • One could produce one answer per country it seems? The title ought to be changed to "Are teachers ... in the US?" – chris Sep 06 '12 at 16:16
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    @RobZ I think this question can work as it is now, the claim is pretty broad, but it is stated that way by Matt Damon and others. It is the responsibility of the answerers here to explain the various factors at play here and provide some context. I'll make it explicitly about the US though, as the tag is easy to overlook. – Mad Scientist Sep 06 '12 at 16:39
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    Are teachers paid poorly in comparison to what? Other professions in the U.S.? Teachers in other countries? – Flimzy Sep 07 '12 at 01:44
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    Compared to Movie stars of big budget action thrillers. – Chad Sep 07 '12 at 17:33
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    I'm not sure this can be answered without a solid metric to compare against. Paid poorly in relation to people of similar education? Impact on society? How much ^$%@ they have to deal with from parents and government mandates? The average American? The idea of being paid well or poorly is very relative. – Bart Silverstrim Sep 16 '12 at 05:09
  • @Bart Silverstrim Flagged for this reason. – JWT Jun 22 '17 at 15:53
  • I'm writing this over 9 years after this question was asked. A current internet search returns articles indicating many teachers in the US state of New Jersey making over $100,000 USD per annum. And it sounds like they only work ~9-10 months of the year. Plus they get full benefits (including paid vacations). Plus a pension. I'm not saying they don't deserve it, but that's a high salary anywhere in the world. – RockPaperLz- Mask it or Casket Jan 17 '22 at 03:21

2 Answers2

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PayScale has nice infographic

enter image description here

Also on PayScale you can see, that the salary range for people with Bachelor degree is $33,421 - $102,559, thus primary and secondary school teachers are at the low end.

Bachelor is minimum degree required of teacher.

Also if you look at answer to question about college ROI, you can see that teachers' salary is inline with graduate of the worst of the worst colleges.

Another interesting ranking on PayScale is "Best Undergrad College Degrees By Salary", full list consists of 120 degrees sorted by median mid-career salary, Education is in the 98th place of 120, Elementary Education 119th of 120.

  • 1 Petroleum Engineering — $155,000
  • 2 Chemical Engineering — $109,000
  • 3 Electrical Engineering (EE) — $103,000

[...]

  • 98 Education — $54,700

[...]

  • 119 Elementary Education — $44,000
  • 120 Child and Family Studies — $40,500
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vartec
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    I'm not sure this is accurate representation. Teachers are 'unemployed' for 1/4 of the year during summer. If this is their salary without summer you would have to factor in their salary they make with part time jobs during summer hours. Even assuming the average salary of a high school grad (33,000) for a teacher working 1/4 of the year at part time summer jobs we can assume anothrer 5-8 thousand in additional income (I'm underestimating because part time summer employees probably make less then full time) – dsollen Sep 06 '12 at 17:09
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    despite my last comment I would still say teachers are underpaid, since the underpaid complaint is usually leveled at elementary and secondary school age teachers. Even if you assume they make another 8,000 a year during the summer they will be averaging 50,300 or less which is still around the average of the worst shools as linked above. By implication of the linked ROI question this means that secondary/elementary school teaders are worse off financially then those that never went to college. Also, the average pay of teachers includes PHD and MA educated, who should be payed even more. – dsollen Sep 06 '12 at 17:15
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    @dsollen, let's also take into account Work Stress. Typically this involves unpaid overtime work to prepare for classes, grade papers, and etc. At least for every single teacher I've had (which admittedly is an incredibly small sample size relative to all other teachers), their main burden comes from all the outside work and extra effort that makes them so stressed. So for the hours they work, they are massively underpaid. – ardent Sep 06 '12 at 18:35
  • @Oddthinking I don't think it was intended to compare BSc with BA, but to say that "bachelor level degree is the minimum requirement" – DJClayworth Sep 06 '12 at 20:43
  • @Oddthinking: my bad, I've written B.Sc. instead of Bachelor, fixed now. – vartec Sep 07 '12 at 11:17
  • @user1873, my sample size is incredibly limited as well as biased towards the upper end of the quality scale, but typically my teachers worked at minimum of 2 - 3 hours after school, doing test reviews, grading papers, helping clubs in the off-hours. Also, it is self-reported, perhaps labor laws might bar get them in hot water if they reported the unpaid overtime? – ardent Sep 07 '12 at 17:46
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    @ardentsonata, Luckily the ATUS survey has a very large sample size, is confidential (http://www.bls.gov/tus/tuquestionnaire.pdf) and shows that the vast majority of teachers work from 8am-4pm, with less than 30 percent performing any work at all in off hours or on weekends (page 56 chart, link above labeled "fewer hours per day") – user1873 Sep 07 '12 at 21:28
  • @user1873, I did stress my small sample size in the original comment, and I'm only noting another contributing factor to the argument that teachers are paid less for their expertise. Anecdotal yes, which is why it's in comments and postulated rather than as an answer. – ardent Sep 07 '12 at 21:43
  • @ardentsona, your "contributing factor" is of no relevance. You apparently had some of the few teachers actually work more than 40hours a week. The ATUS survey reflects the actual working time of teachers. – user1873 Sep 07 '12 at 22:56
  • Teacher salaries, where I am, are not determined by the months they work (being unemployed for 1/4 of the year.) They're paid by days of the year. I.e., you get paid for X days of work. They get paychecks through the year if they opt for the pay to be divvied up into X payments. It's a small but significant point when framing the situation. – Bart Silverstrim Sep 14 '12 at 13:55
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    There are other ways to look at it; do you look at the hours a teacher puts in? The workday doesn't end for teachers when the bell rings. Depending on the subject matter there can be workdays that extend well into the night. If you take the salary and divide by work hours, it's ridiculously low. If you take the salary and say they get that for 9 months of work at average workdays, it looks like they're overpaid. – Bart Silverstrim Sep 14 '12 at 13:59
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    And I don't know how well this takes factors into account like teachers paying for their own supplies. I know this is anecdotal but the teachers here have routinely purchased many school supplies. This year cutbacks means they're now buying tissues for the classroom, which (in our area) wasn't done before. It adds up and comes out of their salaries. And this is in addition to other classroom needs that they were paying for. – Bart Silverstrim Sep 14 '12 at 14:01
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    @BartSilverstrim, except that teachers for the most part 80% or so do not work long hours (in general, they work fewer hours than other professions). This is using data provided by teachers in the ATUS survey, see accepted answer. – user1873 Sep 16 '12 at 03:08
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    @user1873 But this doesn't match with the survey from Scholastic/Bill & Melinda Gates foundation finding a 53 hour workday, linked off of http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/survey-teachers-work-53-hours-per-week-on-average/2012/03/16/gIQAqGxYGS_blog.html – Bart Silverstrim Sep 16 '12 at 05:16
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    @dsollen - except they are often using that "vacation" time to keep current on required training and certifications, preparing their classrooms and lesson plans for the upcoming year, and if you take that into account, you should also take into account hours put in before and after the school day both on site, and at home (reviewing/grading homework, etc). – PoloHoleSet Jun 22 '17 at 17:30
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    If you sincerely believe that *"Teachers are 'unemployed' for 1/4 of the year during summer"*, I suggest you ask that as a question on this site, and attempt to write an evidence-based answer which reaches your conclusion. So I can downvote it. – kaya3 Oct 26 '21 at 17:52
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    @dsollen Teachers in the US are not paid during the summer!? WTF is wrong with your country? – Jack Aidley May 20 '22 at 06:54
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No, not according to Bureau of Labor Statistics figures.

the national annual median wage, which was $33,840 in May 2010

Table 2.

Elementary School Teachers, Except Special Education - $51,660

Or from their occupational handbook, which has this nice graph.

2010 Median Pay - $51,380 per year

The National Center for Educational Statistics shows Base Salary by state based on years of experience. You can compare those numbers with BLS numbers and you will discover that even starting pay for teachers is higher than the national median salary, or do comparisons by state.

Even when you compare teachers with other occupations that require a bachelor's degree, the data doesn't look bad for teachers (BLS querry, search by education, bachelor's degree, (sort by) 2010 median annual wage. You will find that teachers rank 96-117th out of 154.) They are less than a standard deviation from the mean, only 16% difference from the median salary Accountants and Auditors.

$65,060 - Average salary all 154 occupations listed for which the typical entry-level education is Bachelor's degree, sorted by 2010 median annual wage.

$61,690 - (76th) Median Occupation, Accountants and Auditors

$20,815 - Standard Deviation

$53,230 - (105th) Secondary School Teachers, Except Special and Career/Technical Education

$51,960 - (109th) Middle School Teachers, Except Special and Career/Technical Education

$51,660 - (110th) Elementary School Teachers, Except Special Education

$48,800 - (117th) Kindergarten Teachers, Except Special Education

Additionally, this only compares annual salary of teachers versus other professions. Teachers work fewer hours per day (including weekends), and teachers work fewer (185 days/year) on average versus 230 days/year. I used an 8 hour work day, even though teachers typically work less hours than most other occupations (see chart below).

Median Salary (all 154 occupations) $61,690 / (230 * 8) = $33.53/hour

Median Teacher's Salary $51,380 / (185 * 8) = $34.72

enter image description here

If we further correct this data by adjusting for sex, 0.9 wage gap for women teachers (page 80), in this predominantly female field (84%). This also doesn't correct for CEO pay and Engineering pay that are highly dominated by males. This is all before you even look at benefits.

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user1873
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  • @RobZ, which my answer has now incorporated median bachelor salary vs. Teacher salary. – user1873 Sep 07 '12 at 03:08
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    I agree with @Muro. If we are only looking at degrees, then we should only compare with degrees that teachers actually have. If there are virtually no teachers with engineering, computer science, biochemistry or other high demand fields there's no point including them in the comparison. For reference, Look at (http://www.payscale.com/best-colleges/degrees.asp) You'd be very hard pressed to find teachers with degrees from the first half of the list, and way more likely to find teachers with degrees from the second half of the list. – Kibbee Sep 07 '12 at 13:38
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    @Kibbee, is that necessary at this point. When compared to all occupations requiring a bachelor's degree, and when adjusting for hours worked per year, they are paid more than the median occupation. It is true that engineering degrees pay more, but even when judged against them teachers don't do "poorly." I suppose if I wanted to show that teachers are "richly compensated" that I might need to go that far, but as it stands Matt Damon is wrong. – user1873 Sep 07 '12 at 14:13
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    @user1873 I only think it's useful because If we look at it this way we can get rid of all the talk about "hours worked" since there's people claiming that teachers work unpaid overtime for marking and lesson planning (ignoring the obvious that other people work overtime too), and that it's probably very difficult to find a job for only 2 months in the summer. While teachers could work in the summer, the kind of job you could get for the two months in the summer probably wouldn't be worth it as so much would go to taxes, because they are in a higher tax bracket overall then what the job pays. – Kibbee Sep 07 '12 at 14:49
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    @Kibbee, the American Time Use Survey (ATUS) linked graph above, in which teachers self reported working fewer hours per week (24 mins weekday, 42 mins weekend = 3.4 hours less/week) than other professions. I would use self reported hours worked in a national survey, over peoples claims that teachers are working more overtime than other professions. – user1873 Sep 07 '12 at 20:41
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    It's interesting to see that little amount of time reported by teachers; growing up I remember my mother (elementary teacher) working at the school until four thirty or five on a typical weekday, and my wife wrapped up working on grading papers (high school) after a couple hours tonight. I'm wondering how much work her coworkers are taking home after designated hours now (or maybe they're statistical outliers?)... – Bart Silverstrim Sep 16 '12 at 04:41
  • @RobZ - In addition to having to have a degree to teach, today teachers need ongoing education credits to maintain their teaching licenses. At least in PA it's required. It more or less requires teachers to work their way up to a Masters degree or higher or they can't teach anymore. – Bart Silverstrim Sep 16 '12 at 04:52
  • In some cases they're reimbursed for the cost, but with budget cuts (again speaking for PA) some schools are cutting back on how much they're willing to pay unless the teacher *requires* the course or they're in danger of losing his or her cert... – Bart Silverstrim Sep 16 '12 at 04:55
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    ...so this is also a consideration, in my opinion; when asking if you're paid well, if I'm getting a $60K salary but I'm paying for mandated education, paying for supplies for my room, paying towards my health care plan, pay mandated Union fees, when all is subtracted is that my "real" salary to base the comparison on or do you still base it on the net income? These things would add a significant gap... – Bart Silverstrim Sep 16 '12 at 04:57
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    Similar to a discussion I had with someone about pay for a minister in our area. The income was paltry compared to others; but they lived in a home paid for by the church, so there's no mortgage or rent, and I believe several utilities were paid for. They got other perks paid for. Most of their wage was more like a stipend from which they paid for groceries and miscellaneous costs. A small salary was really comfortable when you don't pay for the big costs others need to budget. – Bart Silverstrim Sep 16 '12 at 04:59
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    That seems extremely fishy. I know for a fact that the vast majority of teachers I've had did at least some of their grading and lesson planning at home. The amounts given here match up pretty well with how long teachers spend *physically at school* in my experience, suggesting that the work they do at home isn't counted (presumably because it isn't self-reported as part of their work hours). – Stuntddude Nov 15 '15 at 01:58
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    Disagree with the characterization that teachers work less hours per day. The school may be open less than 8 hours a day, or the teachers' "on" time during the school day may be less than 8 hours, but teachers put in a ton of hours outside of the time between the bells that start and end the school day. If they only worked those hours, no one would ever get their homework assignments graded. – PoloHoleSet Jun 22 '17 at 17:33