Data Supporting Increasing Educator Salary
State-by-State Data
The National Education Association’s most recent Teacher Salary Benchmark Report provides the average starting teacher salaries by state, as well as the District of Columbia, in the 2019-2020 school year. This data showed the averages ranged from $32,871, in Montana, to $56,313, in Washington, D.C., with Massachusetts ranking number 8 at $47,396. However, the data does not consider the starkly different costs of living in each state.
The 2021 Annual Cost of Living Index produced by the Missouri Economic Research and Information Center gives us that relative cost of living. Based on a U.S. average of 100 percent, the cost-of-living index ranged from 83.3 percent, in Mississippi, to 193.3, in Hawaii. Massachusetts ranked in fifth place at 135 percent. The index reflected the average cost of living on an annualized basis in 2021 and did not account for recent price increases attributed to inflation. According to the center’s index, housing ranked as most expensive in Massachusetts, costing about 77.6 percent more than the national
To get the true picture of teachers’ starting salaries in each state, we divided the starting salaries by the relative cost of living in each state. With this calculation, we see the starting salaries ranged from $25,053, in Hawaii, to $50,003, in Wyoming. The Massachusetts ranking dropped to number 43, at $35,108.
A National Education Association report published in March also documents the profound effects of the pandemic on higher education. Mandatory furloughs and layoffs have affected thousands. Previously, for several years, the number of faculty teaching full-time had increased. Faculty purchasing power, which declined during and just after the 2008 Great Recession, due to inflation, had recovered and rose to pre-recessionary levels. After decades of disinvestment, federal and state funding of higher education were on the rise. The pandemic caused a decrease in the number of full- and part-time faculty between 2019-2020 and 2020-2021. Faculty at all levels experienced a sharp drop in purchasing power in 2020-2021. These declines ranged from $600 to $2,600, or from 1 to 3 percent, depending on faculty rank. The current high rate of inflation is likely to undermine any gains. New revenue is necessary to counteract inflation.
During the pandemic, $77 billion dollars in federal relief funds nationally were directed to colleges and universities. Half of that amount was spent on student aid. An additional $7.5 billion was disbursed to states. The Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund, as the name implies, must be spent on pandemic-related expenses and it is not a permanent source of funding. Winning approval of the Fair Share Amendment and providing a continuous and predictable stream of funding is critical, particularly given the undesirability of tuition increases.
Massachusetts Data
The erosion of wages and compensation for teachers, relative to that of other college graduates and those who have earned a master’s degree, persists nationally as well as in Massachusetts. This is particularly concerning given the challenge of staffing needs. A report released in 2020 by the Economic Policy Institute and the Center on Wage and Employment Dynamics found that the “teacher wage penalty” has grown substantially since the mid-1990s. The wage penalty refers to “how much less, in percentage terms, public school teachers are paid in weekly wages relative to other college-educated workers (after accounting for factors known to affect earnings such education, experience, and state residence).” Comparing samples of public-school teachers with samples of nonteacher graduates within Massachusetts reveals an 18 percent, regression-adjusted teacher wage penalty in data pooled from 2014 through 2019. This means that teachers make 18 percent less than other comparable college-educated workers in the state. According to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data, the average salary in virtually all business and financial operations occupations in the state exceeds $90,000. The figures range from $96,960 for project management specialists to $102,170 for computer programmers.
The salaries of teachers are not the only concern. A recent NEA report explained that Massachusetts ranks seventh nationally for an average faculty salary, among those who hold nine- or 10-month contracts, at four-year public higher education institutions. The average salary for faculty at two-year public institutions in the state ranked 19th nationally, significantly below other high-cost, northeastern states such as New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut.
The average salary for faculty on a nine- or 10-month contract at a public four-year institution is $101,745. At a public two-year institution, it is $68,956. Aside from cost of living, many faculty members also carry considerable student loan debt. According to the Education Data Initiative, the average debt among those who have earned a master’s degree is $71,287. Among faculty who have earned a doctoral degree, it’s $159,625.
Increasing the wages of Education Support Professionals in preK-12 and that of professional staff in higher education is crucial. The average paraprofessional wage in the state is $18.59 per hour. Many preK-12 educators must work additional jobs to live in the community where they work. According to an almanac published by The Chronicle of Higher Education, many of the 1.5 million full-time workers in noninstructional roles in U.S. colleges had average incomes below $50,000. The inequities that contingent faculty face are severe. Contingent appointments, whether contract-renewable or adjunct, are the least secure, lowest remunerated and least supported faculty positions, according to the American Association of University Professors Annual Report on the Economic Status of the Profession, 2020-21. This year, the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at UCLA sought applications for an assistant adjunct professor on a without-salary basis. This is among many examples in which the pandemic has damaged the professional status of faculty labor. This is especially true for women and people of color who are concentrated in lower-rank and contingent positions.
Conclusion
It’s imperative that Massachusetts raise the salaries of educators to ensure competitiveness with other states, especially given the relatively high cost of living in the Commonwealth. Providing the state’s educators with a decent starting salary commensurate with other professionals of similar educational background is critically important to recruitment, retention, and equity. Increasing the wages of Education Support Professionals and seeking both pay parity and job security for contingent faculty is a matter of justice.