The Evolution Of Teachers Salaries In The United States

TEACHER SALARIES & Their Average Annual Wages By State

Sen. Kamala Harris is one of them and she has proposed that the government spends $315 billion to raise teacher salaries over the next ten years. Even though education has hardly proven pivotal on the campaign trail in the past, other presidential candidates might now be forced to act ahead of the election in 2020. Given how important the issue of teacher salaries is becoming, the Rockefeller Institute recently released a new report showing teacher salaries by the state in 2017. New York came first with $79,588, followed by Alaska with $78,670 and Connecticut’s $77,717. South Dakota was at the opposite end of the pay scale with just $42,450 on average by comparison. The scale of the pay disparity is also evident in the development of salaries in the 15-year period from 2002 to 2017. Even though all states saw salary growth during that time frame, that growth certainly wasn’t equal. Teachers in Alaska saw their pay packet grow the most with $27,688 while Oregon and Massachusetts also saw increases of $27,511 and $25,939 respectively. By contrast, growth in teacher’s salary only came to $6,904 in Indiana between 2002 and 2017.

Where U.S. Teacher Pay Is the Highest & Lowest

There is a massive gulf in teacher salary across the United States. According to salary listings published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Alaska has the highest annual average salary for high school teachers in the country at $85,420. That is over twice the amount their colleagues make in lowest-ranked Oklahoma, where the annual salary only averages $41,880.

Pay levels are generally worst in the south of the U.S. with Louisiana ($50,700), Alabama ($49,790) and Mississippi ($46,370) all joining Oklahoma in the bottom-10. In some cases, there are even pay differencesof up to $25,000 between neighboring states. For example, high school teachers in California earn an average of $77,390 while their neighbors in Arizona take home just $48,050.

The poor salary levels and lack of education funding in Oklahoma prompted teachers to strike for nine days last month and they demanded a $10,000 pay increase over three years. The situation shows little signs of improvement with a quarter of Oklahoma City teachers leaving their jobs every year while the state is struggling to find and keep qualified replacements.