Move, I guess? Let's ignore cost of living differences ...
My brother is a high school teacher in Kentucky. I don't know what he makes now, but just a couple years ago it was about $60k, with probably fifteen years of experience and a master's degree. He's definitely not living in a mansion and dining on expensive caviar every night. I left college with a master's degree too and I make over double what he makes, and I probably do less actual work. Where's the outrage about me?
From every person I know who's a teacher, most private schools pay significantly less than public schools. According to the NEA, California teachers had an average salary of 101,084 in 2023-2024. By contrast, Ziprecruiter shows an average of 45,979.
California is the 1st-ranked state in terms of teacher salaries, but even the 50th-ranked state (Florida) has an average teacher salary of 54,875.
None of those are starting salaries. To my knowledge, most schools determine salaries based on length and educational credentialing, so a first-year teacher in Florida probably makes significantly less than 50,000 a year.
Also, I'd trust the salary data of the NEA more than of Ziprecruiter and I've seen pretty wide ranges on California private school salaries (anywhere from 45 - 70k), but still comfortably lower than public the NEA average for public school teachers.
(NOTE: Teachers clearly aren't overpaid. Dude's a loser. But like, unions work and through collective bargaining, teachers have actually put themselves in a better position than not. That's a good thing.)
My cousin broke $100K in less than a decade on Long Island. The median is comfortably in six figures there though this reflects high experience. High COL areas also have relatively high teacher pay, though not enough to compensate for that COL these days.
Worth noting, perhaps, that average teacher salaries are heavily skewed by years of experience. In my district, the starting salary for a teacher with a Bachelor's is 50k; for a Master's, 54k. The average salary is around 80k, but everybody making 80k has been in the system for 20 years.
If you are in your twenties / early thirties and thinking about having children, it is not particularly encouraging to think that you'll be making a decent salary when you're 45 or 50.
“If you consider that they get 2 months off in the summer, they're kind of being paid $94,320.”
That’s not how any of this works. If we’re going to pretend time off magically raises salary, we may as well say every US worker with PTO is “kind of” making more too… The median US worker makes $80,200 but with 20 days PTO they’re basically making $90,000! 🤯
As a statistician, I have been thinking about this for a bit now. I believe for the point they are trying to make, it is okay to use mean and median like this. "On average, a high school teacher can expect to earn as much as the median college graduate income" is a meaningful statement.
I also looked it up and it seems in the US high school teachers literally don't work during the summer, they are not even under contract. They are free to pursue other jobs in that time, like summer camps, but as another commenter pointed out, simply acting as if they get paid for these two months is a bit stupid.
The last sentence, that teachers with more advanced degrees earn more, kind of undermines their initial point, because they were talking about an average there.
This depends on the position. Most teachers I know are under 12 month contracts that spread out their salary (also — health insurance!) they’re not unemployed in summer. Otherwise they’d be able to claim UI then.
Some positions also do require summer work, for example special education positions may require a teacher to work half the summer in ESY. Teachers don’t get the full 10 weeks off in any case; they’re contracted for more than 180 days.
Demand and supply only justifies salaries if I like the jobs in question.
Edit: oh my, they are even in fact an economist? How exactly do they think that lowering salaries will affect the issue of there already being a shortage of teachers in the US?
He's "just" a PhD student, as I understand it. Maybe he skipped class on the day they covered supply and demand. I'm ABD in economics (though I'll never finish at this point) and I'm pretty sure the subject came up on my comprehensive exams ...
Shortage requires a lot of contextual aspects - educational requirements of the teachers, number of years required to attend, subjects taught and so on. But each of this likely correlates with the quality of education received by students on different metrics. Any adjustment of supply and demand based on lowering of standards should be carefully evaluated with respect all this aspects.
Fact is: with the current standards and situation the salaries seem to be not high enough for the supply to match the demand.
Not doubting you, as not all standards are necessary or efficient, but do you have a source (at least on the classroom size thingy)? Would be interested as that shortage is also a political issue in much of Europe as well.
Obviously other than quality of education received by students, it may still negatively affect the willingness of work in such a setup and so even lower standards still decrease supply of teachers nonetheless. At least anecdotally, larger classes seem to be much more stressful to teach from what I hear from people who actually teach.
But I agree that there are many approaches to solve the issue with different drawbacks.
Edit: found something on the topic but have not read it yet
This guy has so clearly never had to handle a budget in his life, whether personal or professional. Zero functional understanding of how money works. It's kind of endearing to know people this useless have people that still find them valuable. Really gives you hope, I guess.
The UK is fine and fairly high compared to its neighbours. Europe has much lower salaries all around, with cheaper life and much more benefits. Would never consider relocating to the US.
I don't know, it's debatable. I have fam in the UK. A 30k pound/annum salary when a house is 280K pounds and when you're metered to such an extreme that warming more than one room in your house is a no-go is not my idea of comfortable living. I like the social safety net, the public transportation, and the healthcare in the UK (although I've seen consistent, repeated delays in care that could have caused life-threatening problems).
Healthcare in the US is more expensive but much faster.** The salaries are so much higher and the general quality of life is so much better. The higher salaries more than offset the cost of the healthcare (with the salary comes the health care coverage). You can warm (or cool) your entire house. Every room. Most folks have a clothes washer and a dryer. Petrol is cheaper, the roads are safer, and it's ok to drive as much as you like. Road trips are a joy.
There are bigger disparities in the US--there's a huge spectrum in the socioeconomic classes (we have 5 classes, really). If you've got a full-time career in the US it's a much better quality of life than the UK. If you're down on your luck the UK offers a better life and a better path towards re-entering the workforce, but at the price of a severe salary cap.
**It isn't always more expensive, it's just tied to employment. My health care costs are fully covered by my job--there's a stipend that covers my premiums. I pay a few office visit co-pays which are, like, 10 dollars. Same for prescriptions--most are 10 dollars. This plan covers my whole family. It's an HMO.
Edit: I also have fam in Italy. They rail against the US all the time, especially re: health care costs. They make, as a couple with full-time employment (and both have graduate degrees), 1/10th of my household salary. I'M NOT JOKING. I think they've lost their minds. I would not accept 1/10th the salary for free health care. It doesn't make any financial sense.
I mean, 30k is fairly low if we're talking about England. If we're looking for an equivalent in the US, we're not talking about someone that is going to be able to compensate everything with private healthcare, private nurseries, private retirement, anticipating job losses, be able to get the reasonable work hours, work conditions, and holidays and etc. etc. that you'd get in the old continent.
I'm Finnish and the salaries here look pitiful compared to US numbers until you consider your expenses. Not paying through the nose for healthcare insurance is the biggest one, but there are other costs that add up too. No idea where UK falls exactly but I wouldn't be surprised if those UK teachers ultimately ended up better off.
i'll be honest, i think this is typically cope. the US is an awful place to be poor, but your employer will typically cover a large portion of health insurance and it generally is a pretty good place to spend your prime earning years.
You'd have to be above average for this to work, at least if you're coming from a place that has genuinely free healthcare, right? If you still have to pay something for deductibles, then a hospital visit will cost you more than here in Aus. Teacher salary seems worse for most teachers in the US, but I might be misunderstanding the way that salaries progress, and I don't know how the yank private school system works and what the pay is.
sure but if the salary is double (as in teaching) and you have to just pay a bit more for healthcare deductibles on top of what you get for insurance (union negotiated contracts are usually insurance heavy). i also was comparing with Europe, not Australia.
Salary isn't double for Australia. A starting teacher in America earns on average about 47k USD. the average starting teacher in a state school here earns 80k, higher in private, which coverts to 53k USD, although the real remuneration is closer to 60k because of superannuation on top of salary.
The maximum salaries seem similar also, possibly slightly higher in America for the highest paying public schools, although maybe Yanks are better off after tax, I am not sure how it is calculated there given that there is both federal and state income tax.
Although if the comparison is simply to Europe, it is possible that someone would earn more, although if their education was in America then that would mean some reduction in prosperity due to student loans. But I guess your point might hold, specifically for Europeans who can get a good job at an American school after studying in Europe so that they avoid student loans. As far as I can tell moving to an American school as an Australian teacher would be a slight net loss, or a large net loss if you were moving to a less well remunerated state or you had a lot of deductibles for healthcare.
Personally, I have heard a lot of horror stories about American students (and parents), but perhaps those don't hold through in the higher paying school districts. It is notable that nearly always, when I see a teacher online complaining about how bad their job is, or saying that they have left the profession, they are nearly always American. Which might just be the consequence of there being so many Americans, but there are a lot of Europeans and I don't hear similar complaints from them very often.
Yes, I was taking 2x salary vs the UK and Finland as a given since these are the multipliers mentioned by commentators above. I wasn’t prepared to defend against every possible pairwise country comparison, Australia is relatively well run economically.
“ although the real remuneration is closer to 60k because of superannuation on top of salary.” -> Not certain for teachers, but in the states it is typical to have similar additional retirement contributions not factored into salary.
I agree that based on the numbers you quoted Australia seems to pay comparably if not better for teachers. Not sure if this is true more generally, I know a fair number (well 3) Australians who have moved to the US to earn here in tech — and I don’t know all that many people.
In many places, American students are absolutely worse and more disruptive than what you would encounter in EU or Aus, this is very much true.
Yes, the only Australians I know personally who have moved to the United States for more pay have done so in tech. I don't know a huge amount of American teachers who have moved to Australia, but I do know some.
We simply don't have a large enough tech industry to pay that well.
but your employer will typically cover a large portion of health insurance
Really doesn't matter when the underlying costs of healthcare in the US are significantly higher than countries, except only as a greater strain on employers, as well. And those costs, as part of operating expenses, get passed to consumers, which includes employees. But sure, I'm just coping.
it would take a pretty large gap in healthcare costs during prime earning years to overcome a 2-4x salary + health benefits. your deductible is smaller than that difference for sure. so yes, you are just coping - there is a reason so many more move during prime earning years from wherever you live to the US than vice versa, it’s not like emigrants from your country are all just idiots.
Yeah, "prime earning years" is doing all the heavylifting here. Higher compensation to overcome the higher healthcare costs, too, is operating expense that creates cost-push inflation.
so yes, you are just coping - there is a reason so many more move during prime earning years from wherever you live to the US than vice versa, it’s not like emigrants from your country are all just idiots.
I'm a US citizen by birth. I have a broader view of the impact of healthcare costs than, what, a 20-30 year window of someone here on a work visa.
It was intended to do the heavy lifting, it is potentially optimal to work&save in a place like the US and then retreat/retire in a place with a reasonable safety net, less insane car culture, lower cost of goods and services.
It’s true that healthcare costs make labor more expensive for employers, although a lot of that cost has to do with the fact that it is cheaper from a tax perspective to provide benefits than salary so firms bid up the prices of insurance.
That is brutal. Although GBP still stronger than USD, right?
I know that a lot of British teachers end up in the Australian private system, and they tell me that they earn more and the demands are much less here. I can't figure out how true that is, because I'm not sure what the PPP effect is on "real" salary; I know that a starting teacher here earns more than a starting UK teacher does, sometimes one and a half times more after currency conversion, but I'm not sure if maybe the UK is cheaper. I've heard that it is much worse in London but maybe better outside of London?
Although I also don't know if the UK has something like superannuation? work here pays an additional 12% into your retirement fund each year, so your real final salary could be 84k AUD to 104k for a starting teacher here which is 42k to 52k GBP by simple conversion.
It seems bad to me, I wonder how the UK manages to have enough teachers? Because we struggle here, at least in public schools
UK has public sector pensions but they’re not what they used to be. As someone who has lived in the US and UK, UK public sector wages are terrible and there is a teacher shortage, especially in science and maths.
Ah. it's hard to compare because we have a universal aged pension that is means tested, in addition to superannuation, but it seems like the UK doesn't have superannuation and instead they pay additional tax towards National Insurance to qualify for pension? and then additional state pensions for public sector workers? Confusing.
They have basic state pension through national insurance and then an occupational pension. There’s no equivalent of the super where everyone is required to contribute — it’s all on the individual employer if they offer it.
(What’s REALLY confusing is the US where several states opt out of social security — our basic pension — for public sector workers. They don’t pay the tax and they don’t collect SS. It all goes tl their occupational scheme.)
A lot of jurisdictions are waiving the Master's requirements now. I'm not sure that's a good idea, but it does mean that OOP's salary comparison is valid.
The average US high school teacher's salary varies, but recent data shows the median around $64,000 - $65,000 annually, with top earners exceeding $100k and lower earners around $54k, depending on experience, location, and district; for example, the BLS reported a median of $64,580 in May 2024, while U.S. News showed $65,220 in 2023, reflecting slight variations by source and year. [1, 2, 3, 4]
Key Figures & Ranges (2024-2025):
• Median Salary: Around $64,580 (BLS, May 2024) to $65,220 (U.S. News, 2023).
• Typical Range: Many salaries fall between $54,000 (lower 25%) and $83,000 (top 25%).
• Top Earners (90th Percentile): Can make over $100,000.
• Starting Salaries: Can be lower, but NYC offers starting salaries around $68,900+ with a Bachelor's. [1, 2, 5, 6]
Factors Influencing Pay:
• Experience: More years teaching generally means higher pay.
• Location: States like California and New York have much higher average salaries, while Mississippi and Florida are lower.
• Education: Advanced degrees (Master's, PhD) increase earning potential.
• District & Unions: Stronger unions and well-funded districts often pay more. [3, 6, 7, 8, 9]
High school teacher here. Would love to know how I can become one of these "average" teachers making $30,000 more than I do..
Move, I guess? Let's ignore cost of living differences ...
My brother is a high school teacher in Kentucky. I don't know what he makes now, but just a couple years ago it was about $60k, with probably fifteen years of experience and a master's degree. He's definitely not living in a mansion and dining on expensive caviar every night. I left college with a master's degree too and I make over double what he makes, and I probably do less actual work. Where's the outrage about me?
Something tells me the "average" this dude's using includes affluent private high schools.
Some of those privates pay like crap.
From every person I know who's a teacher, most private schools pay significantly less than public schools. According to the NEA, California teachers had an average salary of 101,084 in 2023-2024. By contrast, Ziprecruiter shows an average of 45,979.
California is the 1st-ranked state in terms of teacher salaries, but even the 50th-ranked state (Florida) has an average teacher salary of 54,875.
None of those are starting salaries. To my knowledge, most schools determine salaries based on length and educational credentialing, so a first-year teacher in Florida probably makes significantly less than 50,000 a year.
Also, I'd trust the salary data of the NEA more than of Ziprecruiter and I've seen pretty wide ranges on California private school salaries (anywhere from 45 - 70k), but still comfortably lower than public the NEA average for public school teachers.
(NOTE: Teachers clearly aren't overpaid. Dude's a loser. But like, unions work and through collective bargaining, teachers have actually put themselves in a better position than not. That's a good thing.)
Private schools generally pay worse
My cousin broke $100K in less than a decade on Long Island. The median is comfortably in six figures there though this reflects high experience. High COL areas also have relatively high teacher pay, though not enough to compensate for that COL these days.
move? in DC where i grew up in 2014, many of my public school teachers were making six figures and mean was about $80k/yr -- salary info is public.
Worth noting, perhaps, that average teacher salaries are heavily skewed by years of experience. In my district, the starting salary for a teacher with a Bachelor's is 50k; for a Master's, 54k. The average salary is around 80k, but everybody making 80k has been in the system for 20 years.
If you are in your twenties / early thirties and thinking about having children, it is not particularly encouraging to think that you'll be making a decent salary when you're 45 or 50.
“If you consider that they get 2 months off in the summer, they're kind of being paid $94,320.”
That’s not how any of this works. If we’re going to pretend time off magically raises salary, we may as well say every US worker with PTO is “kind of” making more too… The median US worker makes $80,200 but with 20 days PTO they’re basically making $90,000! 🤯
Yea, they are entirely ignoring marginal effects, which are likely quite large.
As a statistician, I have been thinking about this for a bit now. I believe for the point they are trying to make, it is okay to use mean and median like this. "On average, a high school teacher can expect to earn as much as the median college graduate income" is a meaningful statement.
I also looked it up and it seems in the US high school teachers literally don't work during the summer, they are not even under contract. They are free to pursue other jobs in that time, like summer camps, but as another commenter pointed out, simply acting as if they get paid for these two months is a bit stupid.
The last sentence, that teachers with more advanced degrees earn more, kind of undermines their initial point, because they were talking about an average there.
This depends on the position. Most teachers I know are under 12 month contracts that spread out their salary (also — health insurance!) they’re not unemployed in summer. Otherwise they’d be able to claim UI then.
Some positions also do require summer work, for example special education positions may require a teacher to work half the summer in ESY. Teachers don’t get the full 10 weeks off in any case; they’re contracted for more than 180 days.
Demand and supply only justifies salaries if I like the jobs in question.
Edit: oh my, they are even in fact an economist? How exactly do they think that lowering salaries will affect the issue of there already being a shortage of teachers in the US?
He's "just" a PhD student, as I understand it. Maybe he skipped class on the day they covered supply and demand. I'm ABD in economics (though I'll never finish at this point) and I'm pretty sure the subject came up on my comprehensive exams ...
shortage requires specifying a class size, there is no shortage in a vacuum.
Shortage requires a lot of contextual aspects - educational requirements of the teachers, number of years required to attend, subjects taught and so on. But each of this likely correlates with the quality of education received by students on different metrics. Any adjustment of supply and demand based on lowering of standards should be carefully evaluated with respect all this aspects.
Fact is: with the current standards and situation the salaries seem to be not high enough for the supply to match the demand.
unfortunately the evidence for causal effects there is actually quite bad.
Not doubting you, as not all standards are necessary or efficient, but do you have a source (at least on the classroom size thingy)? Would be interested as that shortage is also a political issue in much of Europe as well.
Obviously other than quality of education received by students, it may still negatively affect the willingness of work in such a setup and so even lower standards still decrease supply of teachers nonetheless. At least anecdotally, larger classes seem to be much more stressful to teach from what I hear from people who actually teach.
But I agree that there are many approaches to solve the issue with different drawbacks.
Edit: found something on the topic but have not read it yet
https://hanushek.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/publications/Hanushek%202002%20ClassSizeDebate.pdf
Gold medal in mental gymnastics.
This guy has so clearly never had to handle a budget in his life, whether personal or professional. Zero functional understanding of how money works. It's kind of endearing to know people this useless have people that still find them valuable. Really gives you hope, I guess.
The mean, median and mode are all measures of central tendency and thus considered "averages."
This keeps jumping out to me. because it's more than twice UK teachers.
I'm an advanced practice nurse in the US. I make 4x the salary of my peers in the UK. Salaries in the UK are stuck in the 1990s.
The UK is fine and fairly high compared to its neighbours. Europe has much lower salaries all around, with cheaper life and much more benefits. Would never consider relocating to the US.
I don't know, it's debatable. I have fam in the UK. A 30k pound/annum salary when a house is 280K pounds and when you're metered to such an extreme that warming more than one room in your house is a no-go is not my idea of comfortable living. I like the social safety net, the public transportation, and the healthcare in the UK (although I've seen consistent, repeated delays in care that could have caused life-threatening problems).
Healthcare in the US is more expensive but much faster.** The salaries are so much higher and the general quality of life is so much better. The higher salaries more than offset the cost of the healthcare (with the salary comes the health care coverage). You can warm (or cool) your entire house. Every room. Most folks have a clothes washer and a dryer. Petrol is cheaper, the roads are safer, and it's ok to drive as much as you like. Road trips are a joy.
There are bigger disparities in the US--there's a huge spectrum in the socioeconomic classes (we have 5 classes, really). If you've got a full-time career in the US it's a much better quality of life than the UK. If you're down on your luck the UK offers a better life and a better path towards re-entering the workforce, but at the price of a severe salary cap.
**It isn't always more expensive, it's just tied to employment. My health care costs are fully covered by my job--there's a stipend that covers my premiums. I pay a few office visit co-pays which are, like, 10 dollars. Same for prescriptions--most are 10 dollars. This plan covers my whole family. It's an HMO.
Edit: I also have fam in Italy. They rail against the US all the time, especially re: health care costs. They make, as a couple with full-time employment (and both have graduate degrees), 1/10th of my household salary. I'M NOT JOKING. I think they've lost their minds. I would not accept 1/10th the salary for free health care. It doesn't make any financial sense.
I mean, 30k is fairly low if we're talking about England. If we're looking for an equivalent in the US, we're not talking about someone that is going to be able to compensate everything with private healthcare, private nurseries, private retirement, anticipating job losses, be able to get the reasonable work hours, work conditions, and holidays and etc. etc. that you'd get in the old continent.
I'm Finnish and the salaries here look pitiful compared to US numbers until you consider your expenses. Not paying through the nose for healthcare insurance is the biggest one, but there are other costs that add up too. No idea where UK falls exactly but I wouldn't be surprised if those UK teachers ultimately ended up better off.
i'll be honest, i think this is typically cope. the US is an awful place to be poor, but your employer will typically cover a large portion of health insurance and it generally is a pretty good place to spend your prime earning years.
You'd have to be above average for this to work, at least if you're coming from a place that has genuinely free healthcare, right? If you still have to pay something for deductibles, then a hospital visit will cost you more than here in Aus. Teacher salary seems worse for most teachers in the US, but I might be misunderstanding the way that salaries progress, and I don't know how the yank private school system works and what the pay is.
sure but if the salary is double (as in teaching) and you have to just pay a bit more for healthcare deductibles on top of what you get for insurance (union negotiated contracts are usually insurance heavy). i also was comparing with Europe, not Australia.
Salary isn't double for Australia. A starting teacher in America earns on average about 47k USD. the average starting teacher in a state school here earns 80k, higher in private, which coverts to 53k USD, although the real remuneration is closer to 60k because of superannuation on top of salary.
The maximum salaries seem similar also, possibly slightly higher in America for the highest paying public schools, although maybe Yanks are better off after tax, I am not sure how it is calculated there given that there is both federal and state income tax.
Although if the comparison is simply to Europe, it is possible that someone would earn more, although if their education was in America then that would mean some reduction in prosperity due to student loans. But I guess your point might hold, specifically for Europeans who can get a good job at an American school after studying in Europe so that they avoid student loans. As far as I can tell moving to an American school as an Australian teacher would be a slight net loss, or a large net loss if you were moving to a less well remunerated state or you had a lot of deductibles for healthcare.
Personally, I have heard a lot of horror stories about American students (and parents), but perhaps those don't hold through in the higher paying school districts. It is notable that nearly always, when I see a teacher online complaining about how bad their job is, or saying that they have left the profession, they are nearly always American. Which might just be the consequence of there being so many Americans, but there are a lot of Europeans and I don't hear similar complaints from them very often.
But perhaps this is not as bad as it appears?
Yes, I was taking 2x salary vs the UK and Finland as a given since these are the multipliers mentioned by commentators above. I wasn’t prepared to defend against every possible pairwise country comparison, Australia is relatively well run economically.
“ although the real remuneration is closer to 60k because of superannuation on top of salary.” -> Not certain for teachers, but in the states it is typical to have similar additional retirement contributions not factored into salary.
I agree that based on the numbers you quoted Australia seems to pay comparably if not better for teachers. Not sure if this is true more generally, I know a fair number (well 3) Australians who have moved to the US to earn here in tech — and I don’t know all that many people.
In many places, American students are absolutely worse and more disruptive than what you would encounter in EU or Aus, this is very much true.
Yes, the only Australians I know personally who have moved to the United States for more pay have done so in tech. I don't know a huge amount of American teachers who have moved to Australia, but I do know some.
We simply don't have a large enough tech industry to pay that well.
*if you have a full-time or salaried position.
If you're hourly employers will actively and openly limit your hours to avoid paying full time benefits.
yes, that’s the “bad place to be poor” stat. but teachers aren’t hourly nor are nurses
Really doesn't matter when the underlying costs of healthcare in the US are significantly higher than countries, except only as a greater strain on employers, as well. And those costs, as part of operating expenses, get passed to consumers, which includes employees. But sure, I'm just coping.
it would take a pretty large gap in healthcare costs during prime earning years to overcome a 2-4x salary + health benefits. your deductible is smaller than that difference for sure. so yes, you are just coping - there is a reason so many more move during prime earning years from wherever you live to the US than vice versa, it’s not like emigrants from your country are all just idiots.
Yeah, "prime earning years" is doing all the heavylifting here. Higher compensation to overcome the higher healthcare costs, too, is operating expense that creates cost-push inflation.
I'm a US citizen by birth. I have a broader view of the impact of healthcare costs than, what, a 20-30 year window of someone here on a work visa.
It was intended to do the heavy lifting, it is potentially optimal to work&save in a place like the US and then retreat/retire in a place with a reasonable safety net, less insane car culture, lower cost of goods and services.
It’s true that healthcare costs make labor more expensive for employers, although a lot of that cost has to do with the fact that it is cheaper from a tax perspective to provide benefits than salary so firms bid up the prices of insurance.
Yeah, but the Usians think teachers are poor compared to everyone else, although as public employees they get subsidised healthcare.
That is brutal. Although GBP still stronger than USD, right?
I know that a lot of British teachers end up in the Australian private system, and they tell me that they earn more and the demands are much less here. I can't figure out how true that is, because I'm not sure what the PPP effect is on "real" salary; I know that a starting teacher here earns more than a starting UK teacher does, sometimes one and a half times more after currency conversion, but I'm not sure if maybe the UK is cheaper. I've heard that it is much worse in London but maybe better outside of London?
Although I also don't know if the UK has something like superannuation? work here pays an additional 12% into your retirement fund each year, so your real final salary could be 84k AUD to 104k for a starting teacher here which is 42k to 52k GBP by simple conversion.
It seems bad to me, I wonder how the UK manages to have enough teachers? Because we struggle here, at least in public schools
UK has public sector pensions but they’re not what they used to be. As someone who has lived in the US and UK, UK public sector wages are terrible and there is a teacher shortage, especially in science and maths.
Ah. it's hard to compare because we have a universal aged pension that is means tested, in addition to superannuation, but it seems like the UK doesn't have superannuation and instead they pay additional tax towards National Insurance to qualify for pension? and then additional state pensions for public sector workers? Confusing.
They have basic state pension through national insurance and then an occupational pension. There’s no equivalent of the super where everyone is required to contribute — it’s all on the individual employer if they offer it.
(What’s REALLY confusing is the US where several states opt out of social security — our basic pension — for public sector workers. They don’t pay the tax and they don’t collect SS. It all goes tl their occupational scheme.)
British salaries are exceptionally poor. Don’t forget that British teachers make 1/3 less in real terms than they did in 2010 thanks to austerity.
But like Australia, which also has higher pay for comparable roles, we have higher COL.
My wife makes a tad over 90, but she has 2 masters and a JD…. So there’s that…. But she commutes 3+hrs a day so there’s that time suck as well
Does this guy... think that school teachers don't work during the summer months?
In the US, they don't.
EDIT: Some might supplement their income by taking on gigs like summer school, but the expected or standard workload for a K-12 teacher is 10 months.
correctly
you need a masters degree...
A lot of jurisdictions are waiving the Master's requirements now. I'm not sure that's a good idea, but it does mean that OOP's salary comparison is valid.
It's 64k. Just look it up.
The average US high school teacher's salary varies, but recent data shows the median around $64,000 - $65,000 annually, with top earners exceeding $100k and lower earners around $54k, depending on experience, location, and district; for example, the BLS reported a median of $64,580 in May 2024, while U.S. News showed $65,220 in 2023, reflecting slight variations by source and year. [1, 2, 3, 4]
Key Figures & Ranges (2024-2025):
• Median Salary: Around $64,580 (BLS, May 2024) to $65,220 (U.S. News, 2023). • Typical Range: Many salaries fall between $54,000 (lower 25%) and $83,000 (top 25%). • Top Earners (90th Percentile): Can make over $100,000. • Starting Salaries: Can be lower, but NYC offers starting salaries around $68,900+ with a Bachelor's. [1, 2, 5, 6]
Factors Influencing Pay:
• Experience: More years teaching generally means higher pay. • Location: States like California and New York have much higher average salaries, while Mississippi and Florida are lower. • Education: Advanced degrees (Master's, PhD) increase earning potential. • District & Unions: Stronger unions and well-funded districts often pay more. [3, 6, 7, 8, 9]
[1] https://careers.usnews.com/best-jobs/high-school-teacher/salary [2] https://www.bls.gov/ooh/education-training-and-library/high-school-teachers.htm [3] https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/pay-salary/how-much-do-high-school-teachers-make [4] https://usafacts.org/answers/how-much-do-teachers-get-paid-in-the-us/country/united-states/ [5] https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Salaries/High-School-Teacher-Salary [6] https://teachnyc.net/why-teach-nycps/salary-benefits [7] https://nctr.org/educator-pay-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/ [8] https://www.nea.org/nea-today/all-news-articles/state-teacher-pay [9] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/21582440221082138
There I did it
Btw in 2023 the median was $65,220
this guy can pound sand. teachers are one of the backbone professions of society