Numbers and shares of nonunionized public 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 standard threshold Share of group that is below the standard threshold Number of teacher in the group that are below the threshold, as a share of all teachers below threshold
All 2,119,710 100.0% 686,998 32.4% 100.0%
Gender
Women 1,468,782 69.3% 496,864 33.8% 72.3%
Men 650,928 30.7% 190,134 29.2% 27.7%
Race/ethnicity
White 1,542,839 72.8% 476,561 30.9% 69.4%
Black 240,761 11.4% 78,728 32.7% 11.5%
Hispanic 190,829 9.0% 70,369 36.9% 10.2%
Asian 128,592 6.1% 54,181 42.1% 7.9%
Other 16,689 0.8% 7,159 42.9% 1.0%
Age
Under 25 160,947 7.6% 116,236 72.2% 16.9%
25–54 1,476,215 69.6% 389,250 26.4% 56.7%
55–64 320,912 15.1% 96,273 30.0% 14.0%
Over 65 161,636 7.6% 85,238 52.7% 12.4%
Education level
Less than four-year college degree 228,329 10.8% 159,796 70.0% 23.3%
Four-year college degree 878,891 41.5% 305,846 34.8% 44.5%
Advanced degree 1,012,490 47.8% 221,355 21.9% 32.2%
Occupation
Elementary and middle school teachers 1,101,998 52.0% 331,762 30.1% 48.3%
Postsecondary teachers 496,311 23.4% 187,092 37.7% 27.2%
Preschool and kindergarten teachers 69,262 3.3% 25,820 37.3% 3.8%
Secondary school teachers 283,179 13.4% 61,707 21.8% 9.0%
Special education teachers 110,756 5.2% 33,051 29.8% 4.8%
Other teachers and instructors 58,204 2.7% 47,566 81.7% 6.9%
Work status
Full-time 1,663,292 78.5% 292,912 17.6% 42.6%
Part-time 456,418 21.5% 394,086 86.3% 57.4%
Pay periodicity
Hourly 320,332 15.1% 230,328 71.9% 33.5%
Salaried 1,799,378 84.9% 456,670 21.2% 66.5%

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.