Teachers in the U.S. haven’t seen a significant bump in pay in more than 20 years.
- The average weekly wages of public school teachers, adjusted for inflation, has only increased 29 dollars between 1996 to 2021.
- The data from a new report by the Economic Policy Institute focused on weekly teacher wages for those with at least a bachelor’s degree.
- The results showed that teachers’ weekly wages have remained relatively flat for the past 25 years, starting at $1,052 in 1980 and growing to only $1,348 by 2020.
- Other college grads who did not become teachers earned $1,364 in 1980 and saw their weekly wages grow up to $2,009 by 2020.
- That difference in pay has recently widened even further, as the average wages were nearly 33 percent behind other college graduates by 2021, the largest difference observed since the 1980s.
- How much should teachers make a year?