On this episode of the America’s Work Force Union Podcast, Sylvia Allegretto, Senior Economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), offered a comprehensive look into lagging teacher compensation, or as she called it, a “teacher pay penalty” in the United States. Allegretto, who has spent over two decades researching labor economics and teacher pay, highlights the “teacher pay penalty” — the wage gap between public school teachers and other college graduates, and how it has grown since the 1960s.
Allegretto first explained the methodology and findings behind the teacher pay gap, revealing that public school teachers earned nearly 27 percent less than other college graduates nationally in 2024. This figure is based on regression-adjusted comparisons, which control for variables such as education, experience and demographics to ensure “an apples-to-apples” analysis. Allegretto emphasized that these wages have been stagnant or declining for teachers since the mid-1990s, while pay for other professionals with similar credentials has increased by more than 30 percent. The gap is even more pronounced for male teachers, who face a difference of more than 36 percent compared to their peers in other fields.
The discussion then turned to the historical context underlying these trends. In the 1960s, Allegretto noted that female teachers enjoyed a wage premium over other female professionals, largely due to the widespread barriers women faced in other professions. Over the decades, as women gained access to a wider range of careers and higher education, their overall wages rose outside of teaching. Teacher pay failed to keep pace, flipping the premium into a severe penalty, she claimed. Since then, the disparity has grown worse, with women now facing a penalty of more than 21 percent, and men seeing their gap double since the 1990s.
Finally, Allegretto discussed the roles of unions and state-level policies in combating the teacher pay penalty. She noted that union membership has consistently helped narrow the teacher pay gap, although attacks on collective bargaining rights and the rise of charter and private schools have limited these gains. States like Colorado, with restrictive policies such as the TABOR (Taxpayers’ Bill of Rights) Amendment, see some of the nation’s largest pay penalties. At the same time, many union-dense states can mitigate but do not eliminate the disparity. Allegretto said that reversing this multifaceted problem will require a national commitment, including better funding for public schools and a renewed respect for the teachers who shape America’s future.
For more from Allegretto, listen to the full episode of the America’s Work Force Union Podcast above.
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