In the 1970s, the average American teacher wage was a mere $8,626. Does that surprise you? It astounded me! Teachers back then were compensated enough to not only live, but enough to support a family on one income. For decades, teacher pay increased alongside inflation. However, in recent years, inflation has gotten away from us and teacher pay has refused to keep up.
Inflation’s Toll: Comparing 1970 with Today
If you were supporting a family of four in 1970, the average cost per month would have been about $130-200.
Fast forward to the end of 2025. According to the Government’s Meal Plans, you could feed a family of four for about $1000 -$1500 per month.
The cost of living sure has gone up. But what about the wages?
As this is a teacher blog, let’s look at National Average Teacher Pay statistics.
According to a chart posted in The Digest of Education, which outlines average teacher pay from 1969 all the way to 2017, here are the results:
This is not accounting for inflation. These are the straight salaries from those years.
Looking at 1969’s salary, I ran the income through a inflation calculator. I used https://www.usinflationcalculator.com but feel free to fact check my results using one you find is accurate.
The income of $8,626 in 1969 is equivalent to an income of $57,613.22 in 2017.
That same $8,626 in 1969 is equivalent to $75,669.76 in 2025.
$75,669.76!
Teacher Salary was Keeping Up With Inflation, but then What Happened?
Inflation was pacing itself at an almost predictable, steady rate of about 2% per year. In 2019, the interest rate fell to just 1%! Cleary, the economy was heading in a good direction and the salaries were keeping up with cost of living.
That is, until 2020, when the inflation rate shot up to 7%.
In the years since, inflation has returned to the almost normal 1-2%, but the spike of 2020 has never been rectified in the teacher salary department.
What Would it Take for Teacher Salary to Match Inflation?
As you can see above, of teacher pay was keeping up with inflation, the median teacher salary in the US should be about $75,000 in 2025.
Since the Bureau of Labor Statistics hasn’t come out with the official numbers, I’ll be taking the national averages from 2024.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, High School teachers made an average of $64,580 per year, and Elementary teachers made $62,310.
If I adjust the inflation to 2024 using the 1969 salary as a base, $8626 in 1969 would have been $73,220.52 in 2024.
On average, teacher salaries are now lagging roughly $10,000 behind inflation.
Final Thoughts
I’m not sure what exactly it will take to trim the fat and start getting money where it needs to be.
If you have thoughts, feel free to leave them in the comments.
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