Numbers and shares of private school teachers who currently fall below the FLSA standard salary threshold and would therefore be affected if the teacher exemption were removed from the FLSA, by selected characteristics

Total number of teachers Share of all teachers Number of teachers below the threshold Share of group that is below the threshold Number of teachers in the group that are below the threshold, as a share of all teachers below threshold
All 1,867,941 100.0% 592,093 31.7% 100.0%
Gender
Women 1,254,871 67.2% 429,787 34.2% 72.6%
Men 613,070 32.8% 162,306 26.5% 27.4%
Race/ethnicity
White 1,356,715 72.6% 416,745 30.7% 70.4%
Black 176,202 9.4% 55,309 31.4% 9.3%
Hispanic 180,256 9.6% 69,112 38.3% 11.7%
Asian 142,262 7.6% 47,040 33.1% 7.9%
Other 12,506 0.7% 3,886 31.1% 0.7%
Age
Under 25 161,212 8.6% 124,321 77.1% 21.0%
25–54 1,262,142 67.6% 338,981 26.9% 57.3%
55–64 285,519 15.3% 67,073 23.5% 11.3%
Over 65 159,068 8.5% 61,718 38.8% 10.4%
Education level
Less than four-year college degree 234,395 12.5% 165,329 70.5% 27.9%
Four-year college degree 638,788 34.2% 235,683 36.9% 39.8%
Advanced degree 994,758 53.3% 191,081 19.2% 32.3%
Occupation
Elementary and middle school teachers 815,622 43.7% 250,464 30.7% 42.3%
Postsecondary teachers 628,660 33.7% 183,042 29.1% 30.9%
Preschool and kindergarten teachers 70,262 3.8% 38,370 54.6% 6.5%
Secondary school teachers 244,742 13.1% 66,733 27.3% 11.3%
Special education teachers 55,984 3.0% 12,544 22.4% 2.1%
Other teachers and instructors 52,672 2.8% 40,940 77.7% 6.9%
Work status
Full-time 1,469,449 78.7% 268,982 18.3% 45.4%
Part-time 398,492 21.3% 323,111 81.1% 54.6%
Pay periodicity
Hourly 298,610 16.0% 204,370 68.4% 34.5%
Salaried 1,569,331 84.0% 387,723 18.8% 65.5%

Notes: Based on teachers’ weekly earnings as calculated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics analysis of the Current Population Survey, 2017–2019. The current standard threshold is $684 per week. Pay periodicity refers to the time frame for the pay the teacher reported their salary in their response to the CPS questionnaire.

Source: Authors’ analysis of EPI Current Population Survey Extracts, Version 1.0.22 (2021), https://microdata.epi.org.

View the underlying data on epi.org.