Educator Pay: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

June 5, 2025

The national average starting salary for teachers increased 4.4 percent, from $44,530 in 2022-23 to $46,526 in 2023-24, the largest such increase since the National Education Association (NEA) began tracking teacher salary benchmarks. However, teachers are making five percent less on average than they did 10 years ago when their salaries are adjusted for inflation. Finally, even though teachers earn 24 percent more, on average, in states with collective bargaining, efforts to restrict unions’ power at the state level continues – with important implications for American education as well as the teacher pension plans that support it.

The Good

According to the NEA’s new report entitled “Rankings of the States 2024 and Estimates of School Statistics 2025,” released in April, public school teachers made $72,030 on average in the 2023-24 school year, with salaries projected to increase three percent for 2024-25. This estimated growth for 2025 represents a 26.9 percent increase from the average salary of $58,454 in 2015-16.

According to USAFacts, the median annual wage for pre-K through 12 teachers across the United States was approximately $63,000 per year in 2024. As USAFacts explains, “The median marks the middle point—half of teachers earn more and half earn less. The lowest-paid ten percent earned $46,800 or less, while the highest-paid ten percent earned $102,000 or more.” [USAFacts is a not-for-profit organization founded by former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer that provides information to the public about government spending and impact at all levels, from federal to local, and using only official government data.]

The national average starting salary for teachers rose 4.4 percent, from $44,530 in 2022-23 to $46,526 in 2023-24, the largest such increase in the 15 years NEA has been tracking teacher salary benchmarks. The percentage of school districts paying new teachers a starting salary of at least $50,000 increased significantly as well – to 30 percent from 23.2 percent in the prior year.

Finally, more school districts — 20.7 percent — have a top teacher salary of at least $100,000 and fewer school districts — 8.0 percent– have a top teacher salary below $60,000.

California ($101,084), New York ($95,615) and Massachusetts ($92,076) have the highest average teacher salaries.
Oklahoma, Idaho and Utah had the largest one-year increases in average teacher salaries with 10.5 percent, 9.1 percent, and 8.9 percent growth, respectively.

These differences in teacher pay across states reflect differences in local policies, funding, and labor markets. For example, according to USAFacts, as of April 25, 2025, based on 2024 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median annual salary for general education teachers, excluding special education and technical teachers, is as follows:

Among states, preschool teachers earn the highest median salary in Alaska at $75,350 and the lowest in Utah at $34,860. Washington, DC had higher salaries than any state at $85,190.
Kindergarten teachers earn the highest median salary in Washington state at $87,530 and the lowest in Oklahoma at $47,600.
Elementary school teachers earn the highest median salary in Washington state at $99,320 and the lowest in Oklahoma at $47,470.
Middle school teachers earn the highest median salary in Washington state at $99,150 and the lowest in Oklahoma at $48,210.
High school teachers earn the highest median salary in Washington state at $99,640 and the lowest in Oklahoma at $49,150.

In short, preschool teachers earn the most in Washington, DC; Washington state leads for all other grades. However, as USAFacts points out, teacher salaries do not always tell the full story when comparing across states. For example, a higher wage in one state “might not stretch as far as a lower wage in another, depending on local prices.” Adjusting for cost of living provides a clearer sense of purchasing power, and when this is done using regional price parities from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, Washington state still ranks highest for adjusted median annual salary of teachers among elementary, middle, and high school teachers.

The Bad

Despite estimated salary growth for 2025 representing a 26.9 percent increase from the average salary of $58,454 in 2015-16, this year’s real salary growth – when adjusted to reflect a three percent inflation rate — was only 1.5 percent, resulting in inflation-adjusted starting salaries that are now $3,728 below 2008-2009 levels.

Also, teachers in the US face low pay relative to their level of education. That is, most public K-12 teachers hold a master’s degree, but their median pay is nearly $20,000 lower than the median worker with an advanced degree, according to USAFacts. In short, teachers are paid less than the average full-time worker, are underpaid for their level of education, and have experienced real wage declines for the past decade.

Specifically, while real median earnings for full-time private sector workers increased by 2.6 percent from 2010 to 2019, median earnings for teachers declined by 4.4 percent for high school teachers and 8.4 percent for elementary and middle school teachers.

USAFacts finds that even when compared to other government employees that require college degrees, teachers are paid less than most other government employees with degree requirements. For example, the median teacher makes around $5,000 less than the median government human resource worker, USAFacts determined. In fact, the median police officer was paid almost $3,000 more than the median teacher, “even though only around one percent of police departments required a four-year degree in 2015, the most recent year of the data,” USAFacts underscores.

Furthermore, when the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) — a Washington, D.C., think tank that has been conducting analyses of the gap between teacher salaries and those of their college-educated peers in other professions for almost two decades – looked at whether teachers’ benefit packages, including their pensions, were large enough to offset the growing “wage penalty” for teachers, they found the answer was a resounding “no.”

Specifically, in 2023, when EPI took the “wage penalty” and the “benefits advantage” calculations and combined the two in order to find a measure of how teachers compare with other professionals on total compensation, the process showed that even with the benefits advantage for teachers partially offsetting their estimated relative wage disadvantage, teachers were still left with a significant total compensation penalty of 17.0 percent in 2022—the largest to date. (For more information on EPI’s work in this area, see the “NCTR FYI” for November 2, 2023, entitled “No Surprise: Teachers Continue to be Paid Less than Other College-Educated Workers.”)

Finally, USAFacts has also documented disparities in pay among teachers based on the grade level taught. For example, in 2024, preschool teachers made the least, earning around $52,810 annually, while high school teachers made the most at around $64,690 per year. “In other words, teachers of the oldest students earned about 18 percent more than those teaching the youngest,” USAFacts has determined.

Not surprisingly, NEA’s 2025 report on educator pay and student spending found low pay is a moderate to serious concern for 87 percent of pre-K-12 teachers. Also, NEA reports that 40 percent of teachers hold more than one job, as eight percent have a top teacher salary below $60,000, with Mississippi ($53,704), Florida ($54,875), and Missouri ($55,132) having the lowest.

The Ugly

When it comes to educators’ pay, unions matter. For example, NEA points out that 96 percent of school districts with teacher salaries that top $100,000 are in states with a state collective bargaining law.

But collective bargaining laws vary greatly across the country, with some states guaranteeing bargaining rights while others “permit” it, “meaning that it is allowed only if the employer and the union agree to it,” explains Dale Templeton, NEA’s Director of Collective Bargaining and Member Advocacy.

Accordingly, K–12 teachers in 34 states, plus Washington, D.C., have a state law giving them the right to bargain collectively, and they are permitted to bargain in eight states. K–12 education support professionals (ESPs) such as cafeteria workers and school bus drivers in 31 states and Washington, D.C., are guaranteed the right to bargain and are permitted to bargain in 11 states.

However, collective bargaining is illegal for public employees in Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Texas; for ESPs, it is also illegal in Tennessee. The remaining states permit bargaining at the discretion of individual school districts, Templeton notes.

The issue of collective bargaining continues to be a hot topic in state legislatures, with some actively considering or having recently passed legislation that further limits or expands collective bargaining rights for teachers.

For example, the National Conference of State Legislature (NCSL) reports that in 2023, eight states enacted prohibitions or protections for the deduction of union dues. Specifically, Maryland and Delaware allowed union dues to be deducted from taxes in some cases. Hawaii and Oregon now allow unions to charge covered, non-member employees for costs of representation unrelated to negotiating contracts. However, Arkansas, Florida and Kentucky all passed restrictions on dues deductions.

In 2025, perhaps efforts in Utah to restrict collective bargaining have received the most national attention. There, new Utah legislation, HB267, was signed by Utah Governor Spencer Cox in February. It was intended to prevent public unions from collective bargaining, effective July 1, 2025.

The “Protect Utah Workers” coalition, comprising various labor unions like the Utah Education Association, launched a referendum effort to repeal the law. The coalition needed to gather signatures from at least eight percent of registered voters (140,748 signatures) and meet the eight percent threshold in more than half of the state’s 29 Senate districts to qualify for the ballot. The coalition successfully collected and submitted over 320,000 signatures, and the Lieutenant Governor’s office verified over 251,590 of them.

With enough signatures verified, HB267 is now temporarily on hold, and the stay should remain in place until the 2026 general election when voters will have an opportunity to vote to repeal it. (For more information on this effort, see the “NCTR FYI” article for April 25, 2025, entitled “In Case You Missed It: Recent Utah Law Bars Public Unions from Collective Bargaining.”)

In conclusion, educator pay has a significant effect on the ability of schools to attract and retain quality educators, particularly given the continued shortages of teachers and ESPs. Along with the retirement benefits on which they are based, these salaries are essential tools for ensuring the future of American public education. Understanding what is happening with teacher compensation can be complicated and implicates many aspects of government and society — but appreciating the differences in salaries versus real compensation is ultimately of vital importance for the retirement security of our nation’s educators and the futures of America’s students.