Raises without gains: Teachers’ salaries increased, but many don’t make a living wage
But while teachers’ salaries grew over the last decade, their buying power shrank as pandemic-era inflation drove up the cost of living—making such milestones harder to afford. The median sale price for a new home, for example, rose from $280,400 to $429,000 between the 2014–15 and 2024–25 academic years.1
In this District Trendline, using data drawn from NCTQ’s District Policy Pathfinder, we examine teacher salaries in 133 of the largest districts2in the United States. We find that teacher salary growth over the past 10 years looks a lot different after accounting for inflation, and that in some large districts, salaries fall short of what teachers need to meet basic living expenses.
The average starting salary of a new teacher rose by 33%
Figure 1 shows year-to-year trends in unadjusted salaries for beginning teachers across our sample. Between the 2014–15 and 2024–25 academic years, unadjusted salaries for new teachers rose 33% on average, growing just shy of 3% in an average year. The pace picked up more recently, with the average district in our sample raising starting pay by 4% in 2022–23 and 5% in 2023–24.
