COMP NEWS – Pay for teachers has been sharply cut by a combination of wage erosion and inflationary factors, making one of the most influential jobs in America difficult to survive on.

• Recent high inflation has significantly reduced the average weekly wages of teachers but has had less of an effect on other college graduates. The average weekly wages of public school teachers (adjusted for inflation) decreased by $128 from 2021 to 2022, from $1,457 to $1,329 (in 2022 dollars). In contrast, inflation-adjusted weekly wages of other college graduates stayed about the same from $2,170 to $2,167 over the same period.
• The erosion of relative weekly wages for teachers continued at a pace in 2022. The weekly wage penalty for teachers (regression-adjusted) grew considerably after controlling for factors such as differences in age, education, and state of residence. Calculated this way, the penalty reached a record 26.4% in 2022, a significant change from 6.1% in 1996 for all teachers. For men in the teaching profession, the penalty hit 36.6%, and for women, it was 21.3% in 2022.
• The benefits advantage for teachers has not been enough to offset the growing wage penalty. The total compensation penalty for teachers grew to 17.0% in 2022 from 14.2% in 2021. Large increases in the teacher wage penalty have not been offset by smaller increases in the teacher benefits advantage.
• The relative teacher wage penalty exceeds 20% in 31 states. State-specific estimates of weekly wage penalties for teachers range from 7.6% in New Jersey to 37.4% in Colorado. In 31 states, teachers are paid less than 80 cents for each dollar earned by similar college-educated workers in those states.

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