My wife actually has the same undergraduate degree as me. It is reasonable to assume she would have been on a similar pay scale path as me if she would not had gone in to teaching. I am NOT a high-wage earner, but I do make more than the U.S. average. I know what my estimated social security is because I receive a statement from the SS office every year detailing my payments and estimated benefits. As a teacher, my wife receives a TRS statement estimating her benefit payments. This is how I know for a fact that her payment will be less than my social security.
Pretty much all government jobs are capped. Here's the local government work where I live: https://openpayrolls.com/rank/highest-paid-employees/georgia-houston-county-board-of-education https://openpayrolls.com/rank/highest-paid-employees/houston-county-ga https://openpayrolls.com/rank/highest-paid-employees/central-georgia-technical-college https://openpayrolls.com/rank/highest-paid-employees/middle-georgia-state-university https://www.fedsdatacenter.com/federal-pay-rates/index.php?y=2020&n=&l=WARNER+ROBINS&a=&o= Here's the salary table for most white collar federal workers (1.5M of them) https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-ove...ies-wages/salary-tables/22Tables/html/GS.aspx You can go higher if you reach the senior executive level, like my mom (an Aerospace Engineer), but there are only about 8K positions, with the vast majority in DC. https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-ove...es/salary-tables/22Tables/exec/html/SLST.aspx She gets performance bonuses that can increase her pay. For military (who of course get more than this because of allowances) https://www.dfas.mil/MilitaryMembers/payentitlements/Pay-Tables/Basic-Pay/CO/ When my wife was an RN at our county hospital her base pay was $22/hour (about $46K). You don't get rich from government jobs (discounting the private funds that may come your way during or after), but you'll make a decent living, you'll have health insurance, retirement, and decent job security. Like Nook, I say give raises, but do away with pensions. Taxpayers will have better knowledge of what they are spending, and the salaries will look more competitive to private companies.
You're right. I am defensive about teachers. Watching my mother get screwed over and over as her benefits got smaller and smaller...all while having to do more reporting, more out of pocket expenses, more hours, etc. etc. Same goes for my ex-wife who left a good paying job to do what her heart asked of her. You think they're paid too much (or at least don't deserve more), have benefits that are "great", including a pension program that is apparently already outstanding...despite being told and shown over and over that this isn't the case, you push on with your arguments. Most teachers don't get a degree in education. Most schools don't even offer that as a degree. They have teacher programs but not necessarily a degree. It's not a requirement to be a teacher to have one. Only that they have at least a Bachelors and have finished a teacher prep program. They get a degree in English, finance, engineering, physics, chemistry, biology, kinesiology, etc., etc.
I have no idea what this has to do with anything I said, Maybe its me saying white collar jobs when I should have said private sector white collar jobs. No you do not get rich from any gov jobs.
My estimates SSA benefit is $1,838/M. My wife would receive an estimated $3,500/M from her TRS based on her current pay in 35 years (since SSA is based on 35 years). Mind you neither of those are going to be remotely accurate because of inflation, but could be accurate in today's dollars. 35 years of teaching in Texas would be the average of 5 highest years salary x 80.50%, which at the minimum Texas salary for someone that taught that long would be $3,659. The absolute maximum SSA benefit would be $4,194. You'd have to be 70 to get that SSA benefit, where as somebody that taught out of college would be under 60 getting that TRS. Because SSA benefits aren't fully taxed (its a complicated formula, but 85% max is taxed, and without other income none of it will be taxed), it does become nearly impossible to know which is better.
Just trying to figure out what makes teachers special in your mind. 15% of US workers are government workers. Teachers are paid in line with other government workers with similar levels of education.
Does the % of salary depend on the number of years teaching? Because according to TRS, my wife only gets 59.5% of her salary - 80% would be a dream. Also, Federal Income Taxes do come out of TRS. I know the benefits change depending on the year you begin teaching, as newer teachers entering the field have worse retirement benefits than older teachers. Maybe that could account for the difference between your wifes and my wifes benefits?
I have seen a lot of teachers leaving the profession in recent years. One of the best Superintendents I have worked with left education as a whole and become the vp of Sales/Training at a Cell phone company. He almost tripled his salary. I have two teaching friends that left this year and have both increased their salaries while decreasing their stress levels and workloads. I am seeing more and more teachers moving into HR positions in training, companies are seeing the benefits of having someone who actually knows how to teach, train their employees. In the last couple of years I have also been approached much more regularly about jobs outside of teaching. Banking, Sales, marketing, and HR positions. Is this happening to all teachers, no. I have a content area that does lend itself to being recruited more, but I think the word is out that teachers are good at a multitude of things, they have a higher educational level than most, and at this point are getting fed up with how they are being treated by those they interact with. Plus, they are used to being on all day long. I have seen several funny videos of teachers moving into the working world and being shocked that they can eat lunch normally, wear what they like, go to the bathroom when they want, or not overanalyze every interaction ( for fear of a parent coming down on them hard). That every minute of their day is not managed to the extreme. I think the reason you don't see more leave is because of the sense of responsibility that most teachers have. They are willing to sacrifice on pay, time, and personal perks because they feel like what they do is making a difference. This has been weaponized on us to a certain extent. We shouldn't talk about pay and benefits because we are doing it for the kids, blah, blah, blah. All the while our pay is stagnated and our benefits are whittled away. They address pay by increasing the minimum while leaving the top the same. Great for 1st 3-5 year teachers bad for the rest of us. Pensions are another story, at this point I am not counting on mine. Our pension fund is actually robust and doing quite well. As that value increases the more legislatures look at it as a fund they need to get into. Every year now we have had to fight to keep them off out of our funds. One year its going to get passed and my pension will be gone. When I first started teaching family insurance was included, now I pay 6k of my salary a year towards it, that's more than 10% All of these things will cause teachers to start to have more wandering eyes. Want to know how your state is doing attracting teachers? Look to see if they are a state that allows ABTC. If they are, probably not attracting enough teachers and problems are only going to worsen. Especially in smaller, rural districts. https://www.americanboard.org/state...QGPTntiPCt9xx_b76qmDMbkuqcpOMVIIaApHSEALw_wcB
Who said teachers are special? But since you brought it up they should be thought of as special since they are entrusted with teaching and monitoring everybody's kids up through the age of 17 or older 5 days a week 8 months out of the year. Are you really trying to say generic government workers have the same duties and responsibilities of the average teacher and unlike teachers most government workers do not have to take work home or work outside their office hours. I mean are you really trying to lump teachers in with the average government worker? Really?
Someone in my family turned down a promotion at the state for being the head of Medicaid Medicare SNAP and one or two other things. He turned it down and got a raise at his current position. Too much stress. This was a handful of months before Covid hit. He was going to get paid a lot a lot I know that. I forget what specifically though.
You can get good money from a gov job like that but you are practically a CEO and doing the same in the private sector would be big money. Would be interested in what you think a lot lot is.
Doing the same job in a private company would probably get you to 7 figures and a much better benefits package. Not saying that is peanuts and I am glad not everybody is chasing the money but look at what the average CEO or CFO is making or VP for that matter.
I think there are 3.6 million teachers. I'm certain some % of them could leave teaching and improve their salary. What percentage? IDK. I have no reason to believe it's a high percentage unless you'd like to provide some data. You are the one asserting because teachers have Bachelors degrees and Masters they would earn more in the private sector. Prove it. Many bachelors degrees and masters degrees aren't associated with lucrative careers. Why would I presume that if all teachers weren't teaching they would be qualified to go earn some sort of high paying white collar job? That's, of course, an absurd position to take.
Dude just stop, it's very telling you have no idea what teachers actually do, not only do they have degrees and Masters they also have managerial and communication skills, high-level problem-solving skills, and the ability to think in pressure situations. Anyway, I am done doing this dance with you it's obvious you have a surface level of understanding what teachers actually do and think a teaching job making 60K is an easy thing to get and keep. You think any teacher can just get a job in the Klein or Cy Fair district which shows you don't have a clue.
This is why I disengaged from my conversation with HTM. It’s up to you to provide facts and proof of everything discussed, but nothing on their end. I mean if you want to count half baked ideas and generalities sprinkled with one narrowly referenced point repeated over and over again. I think I get why there is some hostility there, the educational institutions did fail them.
Yeah, because other government workers aren't as important because it is national security, water safety, infrastructure safety, and countless other tasks vital to our daily lives... My mom has been working for the government for 20 years as an engineer, and has work outside of normal hours. Sure she could ignore emails and phone calls until business hours, but so could teachers. I try to convince my wife and mom of that all the time. They throw in my face I'm the absolute worst about it.
