How does teacher pay in Alabama really stack up?

Middle school science teachers participate in a national pilot program (Photo credit: I. Pittalwala)

Teacher pay has become a major point of contention during the 2014 legislative session. The Alabama Education Association (AEA) has demanded a 6 percent pay raise for teachers this year. Gov. Bentley included a 2 percent pay raise in his budget, and has threatened (via Tweet!) to veto any budget that falls short of that. But the $5.9 billion Education Budget approved by a House committee yesterday does not include a raise for educators. Instead, it increases funding for teacher health insurance (PEEHIP), which is experiencing skyrocketing costs due to the president’s healthcare law.

If the Legislature doesn't include my 2% pay raise for teachers & full funding for PEEHIP I'll send the budget back w/ an Exec. Amendment.

— Gov. Robert Bentley (@GovernorBentley) March 5, 2014

Certainly everyone would like to pay teachers far more than they currently make. In truth, we could never pay the good ones — and we’ve got a lot of great ones in Alabama — what they’re worth. Budgets are just an unfortunate reality of life.

But all of this got me thinking, how does teacher pay in Alabama really stack up?

In an attempt to answer that question, Yellowhammer looked at three different metrics:

1. The average salary for an Alabama educator compared to the national average
2. The average salary for an Alabama educator compared to the average salary for an Alabamian employed in the private sector, with the spread between those two numbers compared to the spread in other states (Hopefully that will make more sense in a minute)
3. The cost of living in Alabama compared to other states

That should give us a well-rounded look at how well educators are compensated in Alabama compared to other states and the nation as a whole.

Average Salary

As we have been hearing from the AEA for years, teachers in Alabama don’t make as much money as teachers in other states. That is a fact.

According to statistics gathered from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, Alabama teachers make about 86% of what the average teacher in America makes. The average salary for an educator in Alabama is $36,177, while the average educator in the US makes $42,060.

Compared to the private sector

The average private sector worker in Alabama makes $41,079 per year, compared to the national average of $49,200. That’s 83.5% of the national average.

So while Alabama’s private sector workers only make 83.5% of the national average, its teachers make 86% of what the average educator makes in America — a spread of 2.5 in favor of teachers.

Compare that to a state like Georgia — which is frequently cited as a state that could “steal” teachers from Alabama because they pay better — and Alabama educators actually appear to be faring better than it initially seemed.

The average private sector worker in Georgia makes 95.5% of the national average, while Georgia’s teachers only make 88% of the national average — a spread of -7.5%. Even worse, Texas’ private sector workers make 104.9% of the national average, while their educators only make 89.8% — a massive -15.1 spread.

Alabama educators are ahead of the national average when it comes to the spread between average private sector pay and average teacher pay.

Cost of living

In a free market, the cost of goods and services fluctuates based on the ability of individuals in the market to pay for those goods and services — simple supply and demand. That is why the cost of living is dramatically different in various areas of the country.

CNN Money has a “cost of living calculator” that let’s us compare different cities.

If you’re a teacher in Birmingham, Ala. making $35,000 a year (The CNN calculator only does increments of $5k, otherwise I’d use the exact average salary), that’s the equivalent of making $37,853 in Atlanta, Ga., which is $800 more per year than the average teacher in Georgia makes. So it’s fair to say that teachers in Alabama are typically making a good bit more money than teachers in Georgia when the cost of living is taken into account.

As a matter of fact, TeacherPortal.com ranks Alabama 11th in the country on their “salary comfort index,” which seeks to rank teacher compensation in different states with the cost of living and other variables taken into account.

So in short, Alabama teachers make more in “real wages” than most of their colleagues around the country.

Real wages are defined as the goods and services which can be purchased with wages

While teachers in Alabama do indeed make less money than the average teacher in the United States, they’re actually living more comfortably off of their salary.

It is also worth noting that none of this includes the benefits packages that teachers receive, which are typically superior to those offered by companies in the private sector.

Again, this is not in any way an argument against giving Alabama’s teachers a raise, but simply an attempt to figure out how well Alabama’s teachers are currently being compensated compared to their colleagues around the US.

What do you think? Are teachers fairly compensated in Alabama? Should legislators cut whatever else they have to in order to give teachers a raise?

Follow Cliff on Twitter @Cliff_Sims