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rahimnathwani

Regarding the 'low pay' part of your comment.

Pay varies significantly between different states and cities.

There are elementary school teachers in San Francisco whose total pay and benefits in 2023 were $150k or more:

https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/search/?q=Eld%20C...

And to compare those salaries to other jobs, you have to consider:

- the typical academic achievement of those teachers and the alternative roles available to them, and

- the fact that in another role they would have to work 25% more (50 weeks per year instead of 40 weeks per year)

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> There are elementary school teachers in San Francisco whose total pay and benefits in 2023 were $150k or more:

In 2025 San Francisco we have ads on buses advertising low income housing to people making less than $185k/year.

https://x.com/Swizec/status/1972053995050119631

That $185k is 110% of AMI (Area Median Income) for a household of 5 people.[0] If you're a single-income household with 4 dependents then, yes, you may find it difficult to live in San Francisco.

But, again, CoL isn't relevant when we're discussing whether a particular job has 'low pay'. My point was (and is) that teachers in San Francisco are well paid compared with people with similar academic achievement and similar capabilities in the same city. Even when you don't adjust for the number of weeks they work.

[0] Here are the 2025 110% AMI caps by household size from the City’s chart (gross income, before taxes):

1 person: $120,000

2 people: $137,150

3 people: $154,300

4 people: $171,450

5 people: $185,150 ← this is the "$185k*" you saw

6 people: $198,900

https://media.api.sf.gov/documents/2025_AMI-IncomeLimits-HMF...

> But, again, CoL isn't relevant when we're discussing whether a particular job has 'low pay'

Well it’s a little relevant when talking specific numbers. It’s hard to know if $number is high or low without some reference.

Thanks for clarifying the AMI stuff

  It’s hard to know if $number is high or low without some reference.

Yes, and the correct reference is pay for other jobs in the same location that require comparable aptitude, level of skill and the like.

America really does sometimes looks like a first world and third world country in a trench coat.

Because we provide social housing for people? That seems hardly a sin. The limits published here seem reasonable https://www.sf.gov/reports--may-2024--income-and-rent-limits...

So a primary school teacher who is the sole breadwinner of a 4-person household will be eligible for housing support. That doesn't seem that outlandish. If anything it seems very much like a developed nation property. I grew up in the Third World: America is nothing like it. Even the ways it fails are not like the Third World.

Oh no no, just a superficial observation of how you can see a streetcar ad that reads like budget homes… for those under $185k.

My region’s version of that ad is just as ridiculous to 95% of the world.

However I do think the U.S. does have a lot of range, which does look really weird at times. You can cross a county line and suddenly the roads turn into an amusement park ride. I think that’s the main “whaaat?” That comes to mind when I’ve travelled there. Well, that and abandoned cars on the side of the road.

That is an entirely justified opinion. The range is truly wild.

Also kind of important to have teachers that can live within commuting distance of where they are teaching, so CoL ends up pretty important. Even more so if you want teachers that are older than, say, 22 and might have a partner and/or kids so won't want to live in a studio or have multiple roommates.

The median individual income in San Francisco in 2023 was 69,260 USD. The median household income (which may include income from more than one earner) was 141,446 USD.

Many people commute to San Francisco from other places in the Bay Area.

CoL isn't a concern that is unique to teachers. When discussing 'low pay' of a particular job, it's relevant to compare it with other jobs in the same location, which those same people might be able to get.

(Also - there is research (which I don't have time to dig up now) that shows public school teachers who leave teaching tend to earn the same or less in their new career.)

> CoL isn't a concern that is unique to teachers

Of course it's not, which is exactly the point. In many places, low teacher pay is predicated on the fact that there are plenty of people willing to accept the low pay because there are plenty of people willing to accept the low pay. That's not true everywhere.

If you want to have teachers at your school, you have to pay them enough to live within commuting distance, subject not just to tolerance of the commute, but you're also in competition with all the communities also within commuting distance. In my experience, aside from usual teacher attrition, Bay Area teachers don't leave for a different career, they leave for a different location, and usually those places need teachers too.

Are you saying that teachers working for SFUSD have 'low pay'?

> - the fact that in another role they would have to work 25% more (50 weeks per year instead of 40 weeks per year)

Heh. I left teaching for three years to work in the private sector and the "25% more work" was honestly the best work life balance I've had in 20 years.

OK but I'm talking specifically about SFUSD, of which I have direct/indirect knowledge (from publicly-available information and talking with teachers employed there).

I know nothing about how your experience somewhere in Australia is similar or dissimilar. There may be differences in expectations, hours, compensation, job protections etc.

$150k is not that much for San Francisco, especially when it includes benefits. Two people earning that salary would not affort the median home in the area. In that sense, it's lower than the salary people generally expect from a middle class job.

$150k is over 2x the median individual income for San Francisco.

The listed salaries are in the $110k to $120k range. To reach $150k, you need to add benefits such as healthcare and employer matches to retirement contributions.

Those numbers are marginally higher than the median individual income for someone with a bachelor's degree in San Francisco ($106.5k in 2023, according to some estimates). Even the best-paid teachers only get an average salary, while most are paid much less. And because it's San Francisco, that average salary is worth less than the average salary in an average location.

There are many conflicting estimates of the annual working hours of teachers. But according to most of them, teachers work more than the average full-time job.

  the median individual income for someone with a bachelor's degree in San Francisco

Do you believe that teachers working at SFUSD schools are comparable to the median person with a bachelor's degree in San Francisco?

  you need to add benefits such as healthcare and employer matches to retirement contributions

Why would you not include those in the comparison? For most private employers, these amounts are single digits or zero. But for SFUSD, being able to retire and still be paid 90% of your salary indefinitely is a major part of the total compensation story.

If you compare base salary only, you're not comparing like with like. You get closer to comparing like with like if you compare SFUSD total comp with private sector current comp (base salary and bonus).

You appear to be very strongly invested in this completely bizarre narrative that teachers in SFUSD are not low paid, and basically every number you’ve used is wrong or misleading. Nobody is getting 90% of their salary as a pension. If you retire at 62 after 30 years teaching you will get 66% of your salary as a pension.

Personally, in my private sector job, my healthcare and retirement matching is more than the benefits amount for SFUSD, so excluding that is just ridiculous.

  Nobody is getting 90% of their salary as a pension

If you work from 27 to 65 (38 years) as a teacher at SFUSD, your pension would be calculated as:

Years of service * 2.4 % * final salary

In retirement, you would earn more than 90% of your final salary.

  Personally, in my private sector job, my healthcare and retirement matching is more than the benefits amount for SFUSD, so excluding that is just ridiculous.

That may be true in your private sector job.

oh man, you're right - there are some people in California who get that! I should have said "90% permanent salary replacement is so far from normal that nobody can in good faith call it a major part of the compensation story. Anyone who used that as advertising for the job would be sued for lying. The average length of service at time of retirement across the entire California public education system is only 25 years. Only around 11% of all CA education employees even hit 35 years at retirement, and less than a quarter of those make it to 40, so a maximum of 5% of all education staff end up with a 90% salary replacement - and this group is more likely to be administrative staff than elementary school teachers, and more likely to be out of SF than in it."

BUT for the arbitrary reason that it supports my argument, we are going to ignore any teachers that are getting 90% salary replacement, as a fair way to compensate for arbitrarily discarding all private sector benefits from the comparison. So I was right after all - nobody in the comparison group is getting 90% salary replacement.

The point was that teachers earn less than what they could get in other jobs in the same area.

Comparisons should be based on the lifestyle the compensation enables rather than some abstract numbers. People generally have the greatest need for money when they are buying a home, starting a family, and raising kids. Money in hand today is much more valuable than mandatory retirement benefits you can only enjoy decades later.

  The point was that teachers earn less than what they could get in other jobs in the same area.

I don't believe that's true.

  People generally have the greatest need for money when they are buying a home...

Maybe, but the fact that you don't have to save for retirement frees up money to spend on a home!

Most pensions are not purely free money. Employees are usually required to contribute a nontrivial fraction of their nominal salary towards the pension. For SFUSD, the typical rate seems to be 9%.

Yeah, I think they pay about a third of the total contributions.

But the state also steps in to pay for any shortfalls. So I think effectively pay less than a third of total contributions.

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