Why the US teacher shortage is getting worse and how low pay is fueling it

The US teacher shortage is growing to crisis levels as many states are unable to staff classrooms. Fresh data indicate that the teacher pay penalty relative to other college graduates has reached a record high. This increasing pay penalty is generally regarded as one of the most significant causes of the shrinkage in the teaching profession.

According to a CEPR report, the teacher pay penalty—quantifying the gap between teachers' and other similarly qualified professionals' weekly wages—has intensified over the last three decades. In 2024, teachers received only 73 cents for every dollar received by other college-educated professionals with comparable qualifications, the lowest ever recorded.

Teacher pay penalty hits record high

Senior CEPR economist Sylvia Allegretto broke down the statistics to Forbes, reporting that real wages for teachers have declined by over 5% since 1996 when adjusting for inflation. Other college graduates experienced substantial increases in their weekly pay. In the last decade, teacher pay decreased by $46.39 per week in actual terms, and other graduates' pay went up by $220.46 per week, according to Forbes.

The total wage gap between teachers and other professionals is now 26.9%, up from just 6.1% in 1996. Much of this increased gap, Allegretto said, comes from the fact that teacher pay has remained stagnant while wages elsewhere are climbing.

State differences and the effect on hiring

The CEPR report also identifies very large state-to-state variation in the teacher pay penalty. Nine states, such as Kentucky, New Hampshire, and Missouri, have pay penalties that are more than 30%. Conversely, South Carolina, Vermont, and New Jersey have gaps less than 15%.

This pay gap impacts teacher recruitment. As Forbes noted, when college freshmen decide on their majors, education schools struggle to get students because the possible future salaries in teaching are much lower than other careers. The expense of college paired with a decrease in teacher pay deters many from becoming teachers.

Teacher shortages become more severe as wages plateau

Research by the Annenberg Institute at Brown University and the Education Policy Studies unit at Penn State verifies the cost of this pay penalty. Pennsylvania, for instance, needs 8,000 to 10,000 new teachers graduating annually but has been unable to produce more than 6,500. Shortages are repeated in a number of other states facing similar recruitment difficulties.

Public school teachers usually enjoy greater benefits than other graduates, but as Allegretto explained to Forbes, the benefits are not enough to make up for the wage gap. The total package is still unappealing to most aspiring teachers.

Political will is what solutions need

The answer seems simple: raise teachers' salaries. Yet CEPR's decade-long research emphasizes the absence of sustained and effective policy interventions in responding to this challenge. Allegretto noted in the Forbes report that the US has the resources to fund public schools but has not yet discovered the political will to achieve it.

Since the pay penalty continues, the teacher shortage in America is bound to worsen unless compensation increases sufficiently to attract and keep quality educators.