The following is an email I received from a teacher in Guilford County:
I don’t know where you got your figures. I am a teacher with a master’s degree in Guilford County, one of the higher paying counties in North Carolina. With ten years experience, I’m not even making $50,000. Our pay raises do not even keep up with the cost of living. Last year, our pay raise was a whopping 3%!
The second paragraph in the press release says,
“Adjusted for pension contributions, teacher experience, and cost of living, North Carolina’s adjusted annual teacher compensation is $59,252, high enough for North Carolina to rank No. 14 in the United States,” said report author Terry Stoops, JLF Education Policy Analyst.
That is where I “got” my figures. You didn’t even need to read the full report (or the entire press release for that matter) to know that I am using adjusted, not nominal, figures.
It is possible that teacher X is “not even making $50,000,” but the salary schedule and local supplement combined should bring her gross salary up to around $48,000 a year. This does not include benefits like liability insurance (3%), Social Security (7.650%), retirement (8.140% per legislation), and hospitalization ($4,147 per legislation). These benefits alone add around $13,000 to her total compensation.
DPI indicates that teacher salary increases continue to outpace inflation. In their Highlights 2008 publication, they show that, since 1992, teacher salaries have increased 110.8 percent, while the Consumer Price Index has increased 52.8 percent.
