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Comment by bena | Hacker News Reader

"Ends meet". $50,000

That's a salary better than the national average.

I mean, I respect the hustle. Get paid and all that. No shame in the game. But pretending that you already aren't doing better than most people is kind of being dishonest.

The woman I wound up marrying said much the same. She heard other teachers complaining about the pay and how they need summer jobs, etc. She was like, "This already pays better than any other job I've had, if I could survive off of that, this is no problem".

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$50,000 is on the higher end of the spectrum for teachers. In Texas, the starting teacher salary is around $38,000. Plus, teachers have to provide their own supplies, be at the school by 7 am every day, stay late helping with extracurriculars / helping students, and work late grading among other things.

So don't do it.

If I found myself continually grousing about my low pay relative to other professions, and all of the indignities and hardships I suffered, I'd find another job.

Yeah you have 3 months out of the year to prep and job search.

Ok role playing time. Your a teacher. You majored in some subject like music or English. You probably spent 4-5 years in school. Maybe you have some debt. Your working as a teacher right now making 45k. What do you do? Getting an education in something useful could take 4 years + debt. You could goto trade school , 2 years?

Seeing closer to $42k here: https://www.star-telegram.com/news/local/community/northeast...

That's another thing as well, there's the line that teachers have to provide their own supplies. But the degree to which is left up to the teacher.

And then there's the months off.

I'm pretty orthogonal to it now considering my wife is an elementary school teacher. And there is a degree of truth to the complaints, but they are often exaggerated as well. She still complains about how much I work.

The median personal and household incomes in 2016 were $31k and $59k, so at $38k you're starting your career well ahead of the median for US citizens of all ages. I happen to think teachers should be paid much more because of the importance of what they do, i.e. I think they're paid less than their potential worth, but I don't think it makes sense to paint teachers as low-earners in an absolute sense. Unless the point is that the median american is a low-earner in an absolute sense, which is fair enough.

https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/income-p... https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/income-p...

So the average teacher's starting salary is more than 30% higher than the average person's salary in Texas.

I understand that teaching isn't a highly paid profession, but when you only work ~75% of the year, that doesn't seem so terrible...

Unfortunately humans by nature like to compare. I teach at a community college and for my level of education I'm paid much less than my friends in industry. I don't begrudge their success and I'm comfortable with my situation but others aren't. Our pay has been declining relative to the pay increases of people in industry and I think this exacerbates the problem.

In an absolute sense I'm well paid and I'm happy with my situation. If I were to engage in a keeping up with the Jones' attitude then I'd probably be bitter. I don't have kids so my need to keep up is greatly diminished from those who do have kids.

This is the real issue with inequality. Seeing so many other people have it much better than you despite relatively the same level of education and intelligence makes people angry. It's hard not to compare but it's much healthier emotionally not to compare.

Inequality matters in any realm of relative finite resources. Such comparisons are usually the result of accurate computations of status.

> That's a salary better than the national average.

Not only that, but that assumes single income, with mandatory union membership and three months of vacation a year, during which time one can pursue higher education, work a side job or relax. That's a better deal than most others get at the finger-chopping factory or slaving away in a call center.

Thanks to recent education initiatives over the last few decades everything is about teaching to a handful of standardized tests so the job is automated to the point of being glorified babysitting anyway.

It's a cushy gig with benefits most would kill for. I don't have sympathy for teachers anymore.

It's telling how easily people can play off of sympathies, simply by how they react to teacher salaries.

And don't forget the lifetime pensions and medical insurance, protected by law in many cases. The lifetime compensation is pretty compelling.

A teacher's salary breakdown in the state of Nebraska.

50,000 * .65 = 32,500 / 12 = $2,708.

$700 for health insurance, dental, life insurance.

Home in a neighborhood where you feel reasonably safe : $900 month. Hopefully in an OK neighborhood, because you can't afford a private school.

$300/month for a car that actually starts reliably in the winter for the next five years.

Child care for a couple of small children ($500/mo per child).

You won't teach in the state of Nebraska without a four-year degree. $18,000/year*4, $72,000 of debt.

Let's hope nothing major comes up.

>$500/mo per child

While it's only for a few years that's still off by 3 times in my experience.

That would be closer to $700/year. Teachers are government employees.

$300/month for a car? Really? You can get a decent car cheaper than that.

In state tuition is going to be closer to $6k - $7k a year.

Nebraska's average salary is $36k.

In most of Nebraska, that's perfectly livable. Sure, you're not getting rich, but you're not starving either. And $18k a year is not a realistic number for someone who attended a state school in Nebraska.

UNL's calculations with you living at home say otherwise. Even state schools are pricy these days. $80K+ for a four year degree is the norm.

[1] https://financialaid.unl.edu/budget.html

[2] http://www.collegecalc.org/colleges/nebraska/university-of-n...

> Hopefully in an OK neighborhood, because you can't afford a private school.

Why would a public school teacher not send their kids to public school? A private school will typically offer tuition discounts for the children of employees.

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