Teachers make just 76 cents for every dollar earned by similar professionals 

A bracing new report finds that wages for California teachers continue to trail those of other college educated workers, and have not nearly kept pace with the increased cost of living and soaring housing costs in the state – posing a serious threat to California’s ability to attract effective, high quality educators.

The new research – “California Teacher Pay: Decades of Falling Behind” –  was written by Sylvia Allegretto, a senior economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) who has tracked teacher pay disparities for decades. 

The new paper finds that California teachers earn 76.2 cents for every dollar earned by similar nonteaching professionals – a gap that has increased significantly over the past four decades. As inflation-adjusted wages for nonteachers with a bachelor’s degree have increased by 70 percent since 1981, teachers’ wages have increased only 26.3 percent.

The findings point to a remarkable shift over the years, especially for women. In 1981, women in the teaching profession earned slightly more than their nonteacher counterparts. By 2022, female teachers were earning 18.7 percent less. Indeed, over the past two decades (from 2003-2022), female teacher pay (adjusted for inflation) was remarkably stagnant, growing just 0.6 percent.

The long term trend of stagnant pay stands in stark contrast to the rising costs of living in California. The report notes that consumer prices have risen almost 100 percent since 2000 – while teacher pay has increased just 61 percent over the same period. Housing costs – often the single largest living expense –  have skyrocketed across California. The cost of renting a two bedroom apartment has increased over 200 percent in many cities, while the cost to buy a starter home has shot up 362 percent. 

The new paper builds on research that Allegretto has done for over 20 years on what has been called the “teacher wage penalty” – the gap between what teachers earn and what educated professionals earn. 

“Teacher quality is a major influence on student achievement, and if teacher pay continues to fall so far behind the pay of other careers, it is going to become increasingly difficult to attract new teachers and retain veteran educators to this profession,” said CEPR senior economist Sylvia Allegretto. “These numbers from California are shocking but not surprising. Elected officials at every level of government must treat this as the crisis that it is, and enact policies to lift up teacher pay – for the sake of teachers themselves, and to preserve our public education system.”

###