The State of Teacher Pay

Over the past few years, real gains in teacher pay have been outpaced by higher inflation. Coping with the high cost of living is an ongoing—and sometimes insurmountable—challenge for educators. Two new reports released this week by the National Education Association (NEA) show that salaries improved, but are still likely too low to make any lasting positive impact on teacher recruitment and retention.  

According to NEA’s 2025 Rankings and Estimates, the national average teacher salary in 2023-24 increased by 3.8% to $72,030—just below the 4% increase reported in the previous year and still less than in 2009-10, when adjusted for inflation.  

The 2025 NEA Teacher Salary Benchmark Report found that in 2023-24, starting teacher salaries picked up a little momentum, increasing by an average 4.4 percent, the most significant increase over the fifteen years NEA has been tracking this data. Although the improvement was still diminished by a 3 percent inflation rate, the progress detailed in the report is encouraging.   

The annual salary benchmark report collects information from over 12,000 local school districts on starting teacher salaries and salaries at other points of the teaching career continuum. Rankings and Estimates provides state data and national averages for a wide array of public K-12 education statistics, including average teacher salaries and per-student expenditures. NEA has also released the Education Support Professional Earnings Report and Higher Education Faculty Salary Analysis.

According to NEA’s data, the average starting salary now exceeds $50,000 in fifteen states. The percentage of school districts meeting this benchmark increased significantly – to 30 percent from 23 percent in the prior year.   

Furthermore, over 800 school districts pay beginning teachers a starting salary of at least $60,000 in 2023-24—a tremendous 66 percent increase from the prior year.  

These sorts of improvements are critical in the effort to attract and keep teachers. Even after entering the profession, too many educators find they cannot make ends meet, forced to take on second or even third jobs, leading to burnout and an early exit after only a few years.  

Higher pay doesn't happen overnight and is not possible without the tireless advocacy by educators and their unions at the local and state level. But at least some of the recent progress is now endangered, not only by a potential economic downturn, but by the Trump administration’s attempts to rip funding from federal schools, warned NEA President Becky Pringle. 

“In some states, educators are seeing long-overdue pay increases thanks to union-led advocacy,” Pringle said. “But the Trump Administration's plans to gut public education will rip funding from public schools and roll back these very same gains to help provide competitive and professional pay to educators.” 

NEA Pay Report Highlights 

The highest average teacher salaries are found in California ($101,084), New York ($95,615), and Massachusetts ($92,076). The lowest salaries are in Mississippi ($53,704), Florida ($54,875), and Missouri ($55,132).   

At $58,409, California also maintains the highest average starting teacher salary, followed by Washington ($57,912) and New Jersey ($57,603).  

The number of U.S. school districts in 2023-24 offering starting salaries less than $40,000 dropped over 10 percentage points from the previous year to 16.6 percent. 

The Salary Benchmark Report also reveals that on average, the top of the teacher pay scale is $84,272.  But reaching that level usually requires a Ph.D. or 15 to 30 graduate credit hours beyond a master’s degree and often requires 25 to 30 years of professional teaching experience. Teacher salaries top out over $100,000 in 20.7 percent of school districts, an increase of 4 percent from 2022-23. 

A Widening Pay Disparity 

Connecticut consistently ranks in the top ten states for teacher pay. According to the Rankings and Estimates report, the state is now 6^th at $86,511, with an average starting salary just below $50,000. The cost of living in Connecticut, however, is 21 percent higher than the national average. 

For Hannah Spinner, pursuing a teaching career in an expensive state is a daunting prospect.  

Spinner, a senior at the University of Connecticut, plans to enter the classroom upon completion of her graduate degree in the Fall of 2026. Like other aspiring educators, Spinner's not expecting to get wealthy, but she's troubled by the vast pay disparity.

That gap between what teachers make weekly compared to college-educated workers in other professions is known as the “teacher pay penalty” that, even as teacher salaries improve, continues to widen. According to the Economic Policy Institute, the pay penalty grew to a record 26.6 percent in 2023 (it was only 6.1 percent in 1996). This gap exceeds 20 percent in 36 states. 

“Ten years into the profession I won't make with a master’s degree what most of my peers who are not education majors will make in their first job with only a bachelor’s,” Spinner explains. 

Disheartening? Absolutely. Enough to make her regret her career choice? No, but Spinner wonders how a career in the classroom will be sustainable—particularly if it requires a second job. According to a 2024 NEA survey, 40 percent of pre-K-12 teachers hold more than one job.

“I know a lot of teachers have to work at restaurants or have side jobs or work in the summer as well to make ends meet during the time,” Spinner says. “This is connected deeply to the turnover that we’re seeing in our state and across the country as a whole.” 

From #39 to #7 

The pay penalty in Texas, where Julie Wojtko’s sister has taught for 20 years, stands at around 24 percent. Wojtko teaches in Las Cruces, New Mexico, a state that has seen remarkable improvements in educator salaries since 2022. 

“We both have our master's degrees, and my sister works so hard. But I make more than her, and that's not right,” Wojtko says.  

 It is no secret why, however. 

“Texas does not have a strong, pro-public education governor. And they're not allowed to unionize. It really does have a lot to do with collective bargaining.” 

The NEA salary report confirms that teaching in states with collective bargaining statutes, such as New Mexico, has major benefits. Starting salaries and top pay for teachers are higher in states with bargaining laws compared to those without. And teachers in nine out of the top 10 states with the highest average starting salaries were all covered by comprehensive collective bargaining statutes. 

New Mexico’s turnaround on educator pay has been impressive. In April, Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham signed into law a bill that increased minimum teacher salaries by $5,000 at all teaching levels —only three years after passing a law that increased pay by $10,000, along with a 7 percent increase for all school employees and raised minimum teacher salaries to $50,000.  

By 2023-24, New Mexico had moved up to 7^th from 39^th in the country on starting salaries and 49^th to 21^st on average salaries. 

“It’s made a huge impact,” says Wojtko. “Teachers feel respected and valued when they are paid well. We have a strong union. We are organized, and we’ve worked collaboratively instead of at loggerheads with legislators and the governor to pass these pay raises.”  

‘We Are Professionals’  

The NEA pay report also calls out California, Colorado, Maryland, Nevada, and Oregon as states who have invested successfully in educator pay.  

There is, however, a wrong way to go about addressing teacher pay and staff shortages. In fact, some lawmakers who profess to address low salaries are pushing an agenda that is detrimental to the teaching profession and public schools in general. In Arkansas, the LEARNS ACT, passed in 2023, did increase starting teacher salaries, but at the same time erased state-guaranteed minimum salary steps and the state’s fair teacher dismissal act, which provides legal protections and mandatory processes for removal. The law also imposes an expansive voucher program that is draining valuable and necessary resources from the state's public school system.

In Connecticut, Hannah Spinner and other members of the Connecticut Education Association have been pushing lawmakers to pass legislation setting the minimum teacher salary at three times the federal poverty level for a family of two (roughly $63,000).  

With Connecticut’s average starting salary not even hitting $50,000 in 2023-24, that type of increase could very well be a deciding factor in many new teachers’ decision to stay in the profession, Spinner said. 

“I am still very passionate about education. And while there is nothing like seeing our students succeed, that kind of reward doesn’t pay off our student loans, cover our insurance bills, or put food on the table. We are professionals, we have pedagogical expertise, and we should be compensated for it.”