Teacher Salary: What You Actually Take Home

What's your salary?

$84,200. I'm on Step 13 of the salary guide with an MA+30, which means I have a master's degree plus 30 additional graduate credits. The salary guide is public. Anyone can look it up. It's on the district website. I'm in the top third of the schedule. The maximum for my column is $102,400 at Step 22, which I'll hit in nine more years. So in nine years, I'll max out. After that, no more step increases. I'll get whatever cost-of-living adjustment the union negotiates, which in the last contract was 2.1% per year. That's it. My salary trajectory for the remaining 18 years of my career is basically a flat line with inflation bumps.

$84,000 sounds pretty good for a teacher.

It is. New Jersey pays teachers well relative to other states. I'm aware of that. But let me walk you through what $84,200 actually becomes. My pension contribution is 7.5% of my salary, which is $6,315 a year. Health insurance, my share of the premium, is about $4,800 a year for a family plan. Federal taxes, state taxes, Social Security, Medicare. After all deductions, my take-home is about $4,700 per month. My wife Claire is a school counselor in a neighboring district. She makes $72,000 and takes home about $4,100 per month. Combined, we bring home around $8,800 a month.

Our mortgage is $2,600. We bought in 2019, three-bedroom cape cod in Bloomfield, which is next to Montclair but not actually Montclair because we cannot afford to live in Montclair on two educator salaries. Montclair property taxes alone are around $14,000 to $18,000 a year. Bloomfield is about $9,200, which is still, I mean, it's still a lot. Childcare for our daughter Ruby is $1,400 a month. Car payments, insurance, utilities, groceries. By the end of the month we have maybe $600 to $800 left. That's our margin. For a household where both adults have master's degrees and a combined 22 years of professional experience.

My buddy from college, a guy named Pete, he went into pharmaceutical sales after we graduated. Same bachelor's degree. No master's. He makes $140,000 base plus commission. We've been out of college the same number of years. He lives in Montclair. The actual Montclair. I teach in Montclair and live in the next town over because I can't afford to live where I work. That's a specific kind of absurdity that teachers in high-cost states understand deeply.

You mentioned the pension. Is it worth it?

In theory, absolutely. The New Jersey teachers' pension pays a percentage of your final average salary for the rest of your life after retirement. If I teach for 30 years, I'll get about 60% of my average salary from my last three years. If my final salary is $102,000, that's roughly $61,000 a year in retirement, plus I'll get Social Security on top of that. That's a real benefit. Most people in the private sector don't have pensions anymore.

In practice, the pension fund is significantly underfunded. The state hasn't made its full contributions for years. There's been talk of reform, which is usually a polite word for reduction. The teachers who retired 15 years ago are getting their full pension. Whether I'll get mine in 2048 is a question my union rep, a man named Gary, describes as "an act of faith." I contribute $6,315 a year to a system that might not be fully solvent when I need it. I also put $200 a month into a 403(b) as a hedge, because Gary told me to and because "act of faith" is not a retirement strategy.

What do you spend your own money on for school?

Last year I spent about $380 out of pocket. New books for my classroom library: a set of "Stamped" by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi, $86. Replacement dry-erase markers because the school provides a box of 12 per semester and I go through about 40. Laminating pouches. A subscription to a digital primary source database called DPLA that the school doesn't pay for. The federal tax deduction for educator expenses is $300, so I got to deduct $300 of my $380. Thank you, government, for covering 79% of the money I shouldn't have had to spend in the first place.

What's yours?

How the salary schedule makes you feel stuck in a way that's hard to explain to people outside of teaching. In most careers, if you're good at your job, there's a path to earning more. You get promoted. You switch companies. You negotiate. In teaching, the salary schedule is the salary schedule. Everybody on Step 13 with an MA+30 in my district makes $84,200. Whether you're the best teacher in the building or the one who's been showing the same video for six years. The schedule rewards time served and credits earned. Not impact.

I've won a district excellence award. I've mentored eight student teachers. I run the Model UN program. I designed a new AP US History curriculum that my department adopted. None of that appears on my paycheck. I make the same as the teacher across the hall who leaves at 3:01 and has never volunteered for a committee. The schedule treats us identically. And before anyone says "well that's what unions do," yeah, I know. The union protects everyone, including me. The schedule prevents favoritism. I get it. But it also prevents recognition. And after 13 years of that, you start to feel like the system values your presence, not your performance. My wife Claire says I should stop looking at Pete's Instagram. She's right. But it's hard not to notice.

What's your salary?

$41,200. I'm on Step 7 with a bachelor's degree. Arkansas raised the minimum teacher salary to $36,000 in 2023, which was a big deal because before that it was $31,800. My district starts at $36,400 for a first-year teacher and goes up by about $500 to $700 per step. I've been teaching seven years and I've gained about $4,800 over my starting salary. That's $685 per year. Before taxes.

What does $41,200 look like month to month?

After taxes, pension contribution (which is 6% here), and my health insurance premium, I take home about $2,680 a month. I spread it over 12 months so I get paid through summer. My rent is $825 for a two-bedroom apartment. Car payment is $310. Car insurance is $140. Utilities average about $150. Groceries, I budget $300 a month which is tight. Phone bill, $65. I have student loans from my bachelor's, about $22,000 remaining, and the payment is $180 a month on the income-driven plan. That puts me at about $1,970 in fixed expenses. So I have about $710 left for everything else. Gas, clothes, any kind of social life, car maintenance, the unexpected stuff. My washing machine broke in January and the repair was $275. That was most of my margin for the month.

DoorDash brings in about $350 to $450 a month. I work Friday evenings from about 5 to 9 and Saturdays from 11 to 4. That's 9 hours on a weekend, after teaching 40-plus hours during the week. Without DoorDash, I don't have a buffer. With DoorDash, I have a small one. My sister Keisha, she works at Dillard's in the mall. Retail. She makes about $28,000. I make $41,200 with a four-year degree, seven years of experience, and a classroom of 22 children whose reading levels I'm responsible for. I make 47% more than my sister who works at a department store. When you frame it that way, sure, it sounds fine. But Keisha doesn't take work home. Keisha doesn't spend her Sundays planning. Keisha doesn't buy supplies for Dillard's out of her own wallet.

How much do you spend on your classroom?

Last year, about $520. I counted. Pencils, notebooks, glue sticks, construction paper, a set of headphones for the computer station because the school-provided ones broke and they said replacements would come "next quarter," which they didn't. I bought books for my classroom library at Goodwill. I printed anchor charts at FedEx because our school printer was down for two weeks in September. Five hundred and twenty dollars. That's more than my monthly car payment.

My principal, Mrs. Tatum, is aware. She submits budget requests. The district doesn't deny them exactly. They just don't fulfill them. Mrs. Tatum told me she requested $800 for classroom supplies for the whole school, for all 14 classrooms, and received $420. That's $30 per classroom for the year. Thirty dollars. I spend more than that on dry-erase markers alone.

Have you thought about leaving?

Thought about it? I have a Google Doc called "exit options" that I update about twice a year. The options are: get my master's (would bump me up about $3,000 but would cost about $15,000 to $20,000 in tuition and I'd have to do it while teaching full time), move to a higher-paying state (Texas starts at about $40,000 to $47,000, which isn't life-changing, and I'd have to leave my family), or leave teaching entirely. My friend Danisha left three years ago. She was a 5th grade teacher in Little Rock. She's a training coordinator at a logistics company now. She makes $54,000, works 8 to 5, has weekends off, and doesn't spend her own money on her job. She told me the first time she got a work laptop and a ream of paper without asking, she almost cried.

I stay because I love my kids. I know that's the answer every teacher gives and I know it sounds like a cop-out. But Aiden, who couldn't read at grade level in September and is now reading "Charlotte's Web" independently? I did that. Me and Aiden did that together, five days a week, with guided reading groups and take-home readers and patience. That's real. It matters. The question is whether it matters enough to justify $41,200 and DoorDash on Saturdays. Most days the answer is yes. Some Saturdays in February, delivering Chick-fil-A to a house that costs more than I'll make in three years, the answer gets quieter.

What's yours?

The shame. I don't tell people I drive DoorDash. I'm careful about my route. I go to Little Rock, not Pine Bluff, because I don't want to deliver food to a student's house. That happened to a teacher I know. She was driving for Uber Eats and she pulled up to a house and one of her 4th graders opened the door. She said the kid didn't say anything mean. He just looked confused. Like he was trying to understand why his teacher was bringing him Popeyes. That image has lived in my head rent-free since she told me. I will drive the extra 45 minutes to Little Rock to make sure it never happens to me. Because the salary doesn't cover my life, but the job requires a certain image, and those two things exist in conflict and nobody in the district office seems to notice.

What are you making at the charter school?

$56,000 base. I got a $5,000 sign-on bonus when I started, paid out over two years, $2,500 each year. The bonus had a clawback clause: if I left before completing two years, I'd owe it back pro-rated. I finished the two years. So that's done. My current base is $56,000, which is about $4,000 more than the comparable step at the local public school district. The charter advertises this. "Competitive salaries." They're competitive if you define competitive as "slightly more than the public school across the street." They're not competitive if you compare me to what my Georgia Tech classmates make.

What do your Georgia Tech classmates make?

My roommate Viktor, we were in the same math program. He went into data analytics at a consulting firm. He started at $72,000. He's now at $91,000, three years out. My friend Priya (different Priya than you might know, common name in our program) went to a fintech startup. She started at $85,000. She's at $105,000 now plus equity. I started at $48,000 with a $2,500 bonus. I'm at $56,000. The gap between me and Viktor was $24,000 when we graduated. Three years later it's $35,000. The gap is growing, not shrinking, because his trajectory is steep and mine follows a step schedule that goes up $1,500 to $2,000 per year.

I'm not bitter about Viktor specifically. He's my friend. He works hard. But when we go out for dinner, he doesn't think about the bill. I think about the bill. He bought a condo in Midtown last year. I rent a one-bedroom in East Point and my car is a 2018 Civic with 87,000 miles. We had the same education, at the same school, at the same time. The market just decided that what he does with math is worth twice what I do with math. And what I do with math is teach 140 children how to do math.

The charter pays more but what's the trade-off?

Hours. The charter school day runs from 7:30 to 4:15, which is longer than most public schools. We also have mandatory Saturday tutoring sessions twice a month, two hours each. Staff meetings every Wednesday until 5:30. Professional development on three Saturdays a year. And "data days" where we analyze student performance data for an entire day, four times a year. Add it up and I'm working about 55 hours a week during the school year. Sometimes more around testing windows.

The $56,000 divided by my actual hours worked comes out to about $19.40 an hour. I know this because I track it. I started the spreadsheet during my first year when I was leaving school at 6:30 PM most nights and grading until 10 and I wanted to know what my time was actually worth. The answer was $17.80 that first year. It's gone up to $19.40, partly because my salary increased and partly because I've gotten more efficient. My hourly rate at Chick-fil-A in college was $13. So I've improved by $6.40 an hour from fast food to teaching 140 children math and science with a degree from Georgia Tech. When I told my mom that calculation she said "stop doing that to yourself." But the number is the number.

Why charter over public?

The fellowship placed me here. And honestly, the first year, I bought in. The mission. The energy. The school has a strong culture. My principal, Dr. Wiley, is charismatic and genuine. The teachers are young and passionate. There's a feeling of "we're building something." And we are. The school's math scores are 15 points above the district average. I'm part of that. That matters to me.

But by year two, I started noticing things. The turnover. My first year, there were 24 teachers. Going into my second year, 9 of them left. That's 37% turnover in one year. The school replaced them and the new teachers were mostly first-years from fellowship programs like mine. Young, mission-driven, willing to work the hours. The model depends on a supply of idealistic 23-year-olds who don't yet know what their time is worth. I was that person. I'm now the veteran, at 27, with three years. That's concerning. My colleague Mia, who teaches ELA, told me she's leaving after this year to go to a public school in Decatur. She said "I can't do these hours for $56,000 anymore." Mia has been here four years. She's the most experienced teacher in the building besides Dr. Wiley. When she leaves, that institutional knowledge walks out the door. And next August, another 23-year-old will walk in.

What's yours?

The guilt of the spreadsheet. I track my effective hourly rate because I'm an analytical person and numbers are how I process things. But every time I update it, I feel guilty for caring. Like, should I be calculating my worth per hour when I'm teaching children? Isn't the point something bigger than my bank account? Dr. Wiley would say yes. The fellowship training would say yes. Every teacher inspirational quote on Instagram would say yes. But the spreadsheet says $19.40 and Viktor's spreadsheet says $43.75 and those numbers exist in the same world and I exist between them. The guilt isn't about wanting more money. It's about wanting more money and feeling like that want makes me a worse teacher. Like the mission and the math can't coexist. But they have to, because I have rent and loans and a car that needs new brakes. The mission doesn't pay for brakes.