Not Bad for 185 Days of Work
Over the past decade, teacher salary growth outpaced CPI growth, with salaries increasing 33 percent compared to a 30 percent increase in the CPI. In addition, the 1999-2000 public school teacher’s average salary of $41,820 was earned over a period of 185 days, in contrast to the 235 days worked by most other employees.
The average teacher contract requires 7.3 hours of work a day, and teachers reported working an average of 2.5 additional hours a day, for a total of 9.8 hours of work a day. Although many teachers work beyond the traditional school day, other professionals do also; thus, it is difficult to make direct comparisons based on daily or weekly hour totals.
Moreover, previously unpublished data from the National Center for Education Statistics reveal many teachers earn income in addition to their compensation as full-time teachers. In the 1993-94 school year, for example, more than 50 percent of teachers earned supplemental income.
Incorporating these factors into the analysis indicates teacher salaries per day of work are far greater than those of most U.S. workers.
| Table 1 Teacher’s Salary Compared to the U.S. Worker’s Average Salary and Government Worker’s Average Salary |
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| Year | Teacher’s Average Salary (2000 Dollars) |
U.S. Workers Average Salary (2000 Dollars) |
Government Worker’s Average Salary (2000 Dollars) |
| 1990 | $40,765 | $34,015 | $36,038 |
| 1991 | $41,588 | $34,255 | $36,950 |
| 1992 | $41,602 | $35,176 | $37,586 |
| 1993 | $41,774 | $35,228 | $37,605 |
| 1994 | $41,569 | $34,893 | $38,265 |
| 1995 | $41,649 | $35,006 | $38,436 |
| 1996 | $41,211 | $35,067 | $38,370 |
| 1997 | $41,388 | $35,924 | $38,815 |
| 1998 | $41,760 | $37,170 | $39,497 |
| 1999 | $41,913 | $37,793 | $39,901 |
| 2000 | $41,820 | $38,074* | $39,702* |
| *Estimate | |||
| Source: F. Howard Nelson, Rachel Drown, Jewell C. Gould, the Research & Information Services Department, American Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO, Survey & Analysis of Teacher Salary Trends 2000 (Washington, DC: 2001). Available online at http://www.aft. | |||
