Where Teacher Salaries Are Increasing the Most—and Why

For the first two years of Felisa Alberts’ teaching career, one job was enough to get by—but only barely, and not without heavy use of her credit card. “That was obviously not sustainable,” she recalls. Soon, Alberts, an elementary school teacher in Mesa, Ariz., took a second job at a gym. That was ten years ago. The jobs have changed over the years—she now delivers packages for Amazon—but the general economic climate for educators in Arizona has not. 

“It’s very difficult for teachers in my state. With the higher cost of living, those challenges are greater. It is exhausting, but I have no choice,” says Albert, who has also earned two masters’ degrees. 

The reason Arizona teacher salaries are low compared to the rest of the country is because public school funding in the state is dismal, and the legislature—hell-bent on expanding private school vouchers and tax breaks for the wealthy— “doesn’t seem to care,” says Alberts.  

“It's a very tough environment. We have a good governor, but the legislature has other priorities. Supporting educators is not one of them.”

Unfortunately, this reckless disregard for the economic well-being of working people is prevalent in too many other states and at the national level, says NEA President Becky Pringle.

“Educator pay hasn’t kept pace with inflation because of policy choices made by elected officials. Leaders have tolerated widening income inequality, allowing CEO compensation to climb dramatically while educators struggle to maintain their spending power.”  

According to the NEA 2026 Rankings and Estimates report, released this week, the average teacher salary in the United States in 2024-25 was $74,495—a 3.5 percent increase over the previous year. NEA’s 2026 Teacher Salary Benchmark report, also released this week, found that starting teacher salaries rose 3.4 percent to $48,112. (Arizona's average teacher salary stood at $64,291, or 31^st in the nation.)

Although average salaries slightly outpaced the 2024 inflation rate, the prohibitive cost of groceries, gas, housing, and health care continues to eat away at these gains. 

But collective bargaining continues to deliver. If you teach in a state with a collective bargaining law, your pay increase was likely higher. According to the Teacher Salary Benchmark report, starting salaries and top pay for teachers are higher in these states compared to those without. 

“When educators have a collective voice,” Pringle said, “they can secure better pay, safer classrooms, and the resources that benefit both their profession and the success of every student.” 

NEA Teacher Pay Data Highlights

Too many potential educators never enter the classroom in part because of low starting salaries and a widening wage gap—often called the “teacher pay penalty”—between teaching and other professions requiring similar education. 

In 2025, the Economic Policy Institute, which has tracked this trend for more than a decade, found that recent higher salaries have not closed the gap. In 2024, teachers earned 26.9 percent of similarly educated professionals, compared to 6.1 percent in 1996.

In addition, the teacher pay gap has now surpassed 25 percent in 20 states. 

And even though teacher salaries finally caught up to inflation in the past year, once you zoom out on the data, the trends are troubling. According to the NEA reports, when adjusted for inflation, teachers earn about 5 percent less today than they did 10 years ago. The average salary of classroom teachers has decreased by an estimated 4.6 percent from 2016-17 to 2025-26.

New teacher pay tells a similar story. Despite the increase in 2024-25 — one of the largest starting-salary increases of the past decade — the inflation-adjusted gain is just 0.7 percent. 

Still, there are signs of progress. According to the Teacher Salary Benchmark Report, roughly 35 percent of teachers work in districts with an average starting salary of at least $50,000. Fifteen states now meet this threshold, up from 13 last year. In 2024-2025, 91 percent of districts, the most ever, have starting teacher salaries of at least $40,000.

In addition, 31 percent of school districts now have a maximum salary of at least $96,000. However, 7.1 percent of districts still pay a top teacher salary below $60,000, regardless of years of experience or number of advanced degrees. 

Where are teachers paid the most? The highest average teacher salaries are found in California ($103,552), New York ($98,655), and Washington ($96,589). The lowest salaries are in Mississippi ($54,975), Florida ($56,663), and Louisiana ($56,785).  

The Financial Strain on Teachers

Charles Cameron, a middle school teacher in Indianapolis, has seen his salary increase consistently over a decade-long teaching career. But the rising cost of living, he says, is unnerving. 

“Do I make enough to get by? Yes. But do I make what I deserve? No. And am I worried about inflation and the effect the rising cost of living has on my life? Absolutely. I feel it every day. The price of gas, food, and especially health care.” 

Furthermore, Cameron says, the stress and time he puts into his work is not “in line with what I get paid every two weeks.” 

Teaching is already a high-stress profession without the added pressure of financial struggle. A recent Gallup survey found that one in five teachers are finding it difficult to get by on their household income, and just over half are barely making ends meet. And more than half of teachers who are finding it difficult to make ends meet on their present income feel “burned out at work very often or always.”

Seventy-one percent said they worked a second job—and these are not summer or spring break gigs. The vast majority of those who hold side jobs do that work during the school year. 

These findings align with the results of a 2024 NEA survey of preK-12 teachers. Eighty-seven percent said low pay was a “serious or moderate” concern, and nearly one-third reported their families skip medical care due to financial strain. A quarter had moderate to serious problems buying food. 

And, according to a 2025 RAND survey of teachers, low pay was the second-highest ranked source of job-related stress.  

For even the most dedicated educators, these mounting pressures can drive them to an early exit from the profession. 

 “They told us in college that about 60 percent of us weren’t going to make it to our tenth year,” Alberts recalls. “I think that’s correct. I’m probably the only one left from my cohort still teaching.” 

Collective Bargaining's Impact

Across the country, collective bargaining is making a big difference. According to the Teacher Salary Benchmark Report, on average, teachers earn 24 percent more in states where they have collective bargaining rights.

The states with the highest average teacher pay—California, New York, and Washington—are all states with strong collective bargaining rights. Where union rights are much weaker—Louisiana, Florida, and Mississippi—pay tends to suffer.

And every state showing the strongest teacher pay growth in 2024–25— Nevada, the District of Columbia, Delaware, Maine, and Colorado—has collective bargaining rights.

Collective bargaining's advantage is most evident in top salaries. As NEA's report says, “Many non-collective-bargaining states have prioritized raising minimum teacher salaries but not other salaries along a career span. Thus, collective bargaining remains the best way to improve teachers’ overall lifetime earnings.”

Making Noise

The average starting teacher salary in Colorado has moved six places in the NEA ranking of average starting salaries, improving from 41st to 35th in 2024-25. The average starting pay in school districts with collective bargaining agreements has exceeded $50,000 for the first time.

One of those districts is the Poudre School District in Fort Collins, where Wendy Bergman teaches high school social studies.

“The reason things are moving in a new direction in Colorado is because of the work we’ve done as a union,” says Bergman. “In my district, when I started, the starting salary was around $48,000. Now, it’s around $58,000, so we have been able to climb.”

Bergman also credits a coordinated statewide organizing effort to get more money into Colorado’s classrooms, which are chronically underfunded, ranking near the bottom nationally in per pupil funding. 

“We really annoyed the heck out of our legislature, which is a good thing,” Bergman says. “You have to be obnoxious in the best way and show up in force, make noise and hold lawmakers accountable.”

Still, public schools and educators in the state are facing severe headwinds in 2026 as the legislature is threatening more cuts to funding.

The Colorado Education Association is leading a campaign to get a referendum on the November ballot that would ask voters to boost school funding by increasing the state’s Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR) cap tied to K-12 spending. Passed by voter referendum in 1992, TABOR has weakened public services by straitjacketing lawmakers’ ability to determine the scope of government and respond to changing economic climates.

If voters approve the measure, the new money would be directed specifically at increasing teacher pay and retention, and lowering class sizes, among other things.

“If we’re successful, it could make a huge difference,” Bergman says. “We have made some progress, so we need to keep the trend in the right direction.”