The wage gap between teachers and comparable professionals has grown over time, with teachers now earning 18.7 percent less than other college-educated workers, .
A new paper published by the Economic Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank supported by labor unions, found that the 鈥渢eacher wage penalty鈥� has increased significantly鈥攖eachers earned just 1.8 percent less than comparable workers in 1994. And although teachers do receive better benefits packages than their college-educated peers, those benefits only mitigate part of the gap: Including benefits, teachers face an 11 percent compensation penalty.
See also: Teacher Pay: How Salaries, Pensions, and Benefits Work in Schools
These findings might explain why a new majority of Americans . Low pay was also a major factor driving the widescale teacher strikes and protests in Arizona, Colorado, Kentucky, North Carolina, Oklahoma, and West Virginia last spring.
Four of the states with teacher activism had the largest wage penalties in the country鈥擜rizona had a 36.4 percent wage gap between teachers and similarly educated professionals, North Carolina鈥檚 gap stood at 35.5 percent, Oklahoma鈥檚 at 35.4 percent, and Colorado鈥檚 at 35.1 percent.
Overall, teachers鈥� weekly wages lag by more than 25 percent compared to similarly educated professionals in 16 states. There are no states where teacher pay is equal to or better than that of other college graduates.
鈥淭he opportunity cost of becoming a teacher and remaining in the profession becomes more and more important as relative teacher pay falls further behind that of other professions,鈥� write report authors Lawrence Mishel, the president of EPI, and Sylvia Allegretto, an EPI research associate and a University of California, Berkeley economist.
Compared to other college graduates, in 2017, teachers were paid nearly $350 less than their peers per week. Since 1996, teacher pay has actually decreased $27 per week, adjusted for inflation, while college graduates鈥� average weekly wages have increased over that same time period.
There are also gender differences. In 1960, teaching was a lucrative profession for women鈥攆emale teachers earned 14.7 percent more than comparable female workers. But now, the report found a 15.6 percent wage penalty for female teachers. And male teachers take even more of a financial hit鈥攖heir wage gap stood at 26.8 percent in 2017.
Teaching is a predominately female profession鈥攁bout 77 percent of teachers are women, according to the latest federal data. The report authors write that historically, female teachers were a 鈥渃aptive labor pool鈥� with few career options and therefore less leverage to secure higher wages. That historical background is why the pay for teachers has been less than pay in male-dominated professions, Mishel and Allegretto write.
鈥淭hose arguing that teachers are overpaid have a hard time explaining how, if this is so, men have not swarmed to teaching,鈥� they added.
Why Are Teacher Wages Declining?
Mishel and Allegretto attribute the erosion of teacher pay to the revenue declines states are facing because they have cut taxes. While teachers 鈥渕ay have forgone wage increases for benefits,鈥� they write, teacher wages have been stagnant since the mid-1990s.
鈥淭his makes the wage penalty, on its own, critically important as it is only earnings that families can put toward making ends meet,鈥� Mishel and Allegretto write, adding that wages, not benefits, are what pay for expenses like rent, food, and student loan payments.
, published Wednesday by the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution, examined the average teacher salary reductions that have taken place in many states. Michael Hansen, the center鈥檚 director and the author of the analysis, said in an interview that he wanted to examine the oft-made claim that if a wave of baby boomers are exiting the classroom, teacher salaries would decline by default because teachers are paid commensurate with experience.
Instead, he found that retiring teachers are not the source of average salary declines. Teachers have actually gotten more qualified during the Great Recession鈥攕o they should be paid even more, he said. According to U.S. Census Bureau data, more teachers report having master鈥檚 and doctoral degrees in 2016 than they did in 2007.
Accounting for the increased qualifications, Hansen found that teacher salaries have decreased 3.5 percent since 2007.
鈥淭his evidence should compel the public and policymakers to rethink our popular assumptions about how generously (or not) teachers are paid,鈥� Hansen wrote in his analysis. 鈥淲e all know teaching is not a lucrative profession, but this popular understanding overlooks differences in how teachers鈥� salaries have eroded over time.鈥�
Image: Melissa Knight, who teaches art at an Ardmore, Okla., middle school, rallies with other teachers in April at the state Capitol in Oklahoma City to protest low school funding. 鈥擲ue Ogrocki/AP-File
Chart via the Economic Policy Institute