Teachers’ paychecks have never fully reflected their passion or professionalism, but as America’s cost-of-living crisis persists, educators increasingly cannot afford even life’s basic necessities.
Rebecca Mikkelson, a school counselor in New Mexico, currently works three jobs just to buy the basics—groceries, a place to live, and health insurance. “The message this sends is deeply troubling: even when educators follow the rules, invest in education, eliminate my debt, and work full time in public service, financial security is no longer guaranteed,” she tells me. “This is not a personal failure, it’s a systemic one.”
Her story is not unique. A recent survey of American Federation of Teachers (AFT) members found that the vast majority are living from paycheck to paycheck and many are taking on debt to pay for groceries, rent, and healthcare costs. Educators play a crucial role in our society, and the affordability crisis among America’s teachers can no longer be ignored.
This is a five-alarm fire, and it’s getting worse. According to the most recent data from the National Education Association, teachers make less than they did 10 years ago. The average starting salary has increased a paltry 0.7%—nowhere near enough to cover soaring gas prices, which have increased more than 40% this year. Meanwhile, the pay gap between teachers and other college-educated professionals—known as the “teacher pay penalty”—has grown to 27%. To put it plainly, people with the same level of education and experience can make far more doing almost anything other than teaching. We cannot accept this as an unfortunate reality or an accident.
For decades, this country has lionized teachers as “heroes” and then turned around and underinvested in public education, chipping away at the wages that once made teaching a stable middle-class profession by attacking collective bargaining—one of the few tools educators have to fight for decent pay and well-supported schools. <
