AFT salary survey: Teacher wages hurt by healthcare costs

Skyrocketing healthcare costs have put a big dent in efforts to make education salaries competitive with other professions, the latest AFT salary survey shows.

The 2002-03 average teacher salary was $45,771, up 3.3 percent from the previous year, and average beginning teacher salaries rose 3.2 percent to $29,564 for the same period, according to the AFT survey, which was released last summer at the AFT national convention in Washington, D.C. But those gains are dwarfed by staggering increases in the cost of health insurance benefits—which spiked an astounding 13 percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports.

“Exorbitant health insurance costs are taking an intolerable bite out of already inadequate teacher salaries,” AFT president Edward J. McElroy warned. “Even as teachers are being asked to do more, compensation packages are nothing short of insulting and fail to take account of growing healthcare and other out-of-pocket costs to teachers.”

The union’s annual survey also includes a state-by-state breakdown of salaries. California, Michigan, Connecticut and New Jersey had the nation’s highest average salaries in 2002-03. States in the lowest tier were South Dakota, Oklahoma, North Dakota and Mississippi.

For beginning teachers, the highest average salaries were found in Alaska and New Jersey, while Montana and Arizona ranked last in this category. In the largest urban cities, the beginning salary grew just 1.6 percent in 2003-04.