I was a teacher in the Midwest before moving into programming. My salary was $28k. I worked in a larger city for a couple years and was making $35k for a while.

In order to afford student loan payments and rent, I worked three jobs. Still missed meals and was late in payments regularly.

The cities your mentioning are very high COL areas, and relatively affluent. Competition for those teaching positions is going to be very intense, and mostly go to senior teachers with at least 5-10 years experience. It's not representative of the nation.