Teacher Pay and Unaffordable Housing

Teachers get paid much less than those in private industry and here in California we are slipping even further behind. In the last two years the increase in average teacher pay hasn't even kept pace with inflation.

The AFT just released a study on teacher pay (pdf). This is from their NCLBlog.

The average teacher pay in 2005 was $47,602. Beginning teacher pay was $31,753.
• Average and Beginning wages didn’t keep pace with inflation in 2005
• Real salaries for experienced teachers in the largest cities rose by less than 1 percent in 2006. Average raises for beginning teachers were up by 1.3 percent.
• Between 1995 and 2005 real pay in the private sector rose by 12.7 percent. Real beginning teacher pay rose by 3.3 percent. Average teacher pay rose by 1 percent.
• When compared to professions requiring similar education, real teacher pay rose by less than 1 percent over the five years 2000-2005. Pay for other professions rose by more than 6 percent.
• A beginning teacher with the average student loan burden could expect to spend almost 9 percent of her take home pay on loans in 2006
• In 15 of the 50 largest cities in America a mid-career teacher can’t afford the median priced home.

It should surprise no one that there are a few Californian locales among those 15 unaffordable cities. In 2006, a beginning teacher in San Diego, San Jose or San Francisco would have had to have spent more than 30 percent of their income to get a median priced apartment. According to HUD, that makes such an apartment unaffordable.

A teacher with a Master's degree in San Francsico would have to pay 57% of their salary to afford purchasing a median prices home. Its 45% in LA, 41% in San Diego and 39% in San Jose.

This is just as much of a teacher pay issue, as it it an affordable housing problem. The combination thereof spells disaster for our teachers in the largest cities. It often means they cannot afford to live in the communities where they teach.