Does More Money Matter to Teachers? It’s Not a Simple Yes or No Question

Aldeman: Raising pay to keep highly qualified STEM educators & fill shortage areas may make sense. Giving across-the-board raises may not.

As a candidate for president in 2020, Kamala Harris introduced a plan to raise teacher salaries by $13,500.

Why that specific dollar amount? Harris was thinking along economic lines, and she sold the policy as one that would erase the teacher wage gap, as documented over the years by the Economic Policy Institute. As of the most recent report, with data through 2022, the institute estimated that educators earn 26% less in weekly wages than other workers with similar academic credentials.