In a search for jobs that once paid well, but have fallen below average in most states, out of hundreds of industries. Public schools stood out.
In the early 1990s, when today’s veteran educators were starting out, public-school teachers and support staff pulled in above-average paychecks in 26 of the 42 states for which the Labor Department had comparable data.
By 2017, their earnings topped the average in just one state, Rhode Island. Over that time, public-school teacher and staff earnings fell relative to the average worker in all 42 of those states.
The biggest relative drop came in Wisconsin. In the early nineties, Wisconsin public-school teachers and staff earned about 1.2 times average workers’ pay. In recent years, that number has fallen to about nine-tenths of the statewide average. The smallest drops came in Alabama, West Virginia and Mississippi. In those states, teacher pay already was below average.
The only other comparable industries in terms of employment and salaries to see similar pay slides include delivery drivers, printers, electronics retailers and warehouse workers — industries that were reshaped by the rise of the internet.