Pennsylvania public school teachers differ from other full-time employees on pay, education level, and other demographic and work characteristics: Compensation and demographic characteristics of Pennsylvania public school teachers compared with other full-time Pennsylvania employees, 2010–2014

PA private-sector and state and local government employees PA public school teachers Difference
Pay
Weekly salary $1,111 $1,233 11.0%
Weekly compensation $1,443 $1,740 20.6%
Demographics
Female 40.9% 71.5% 30.6 ppt.
White 92.5% 96.9% 4.4 ppt.
Black 4.6% 2.5% -2.2 ppt.
Asian 2.5% 0.6% -1.9 ppt.
Hispanic 2.7% 1.0% -1.7 ppt.
Married 64.5% 74.6% 10.0 ppt.
Age 44.2 41.9 -2.3 yrs.
Education
High school 34.3% 0.0% -34.3 ppt.
Some college 11.4% 0.3% -11.0 ppt.
Associate degree 11.5% 0.6% -10.8 ppt.
Bachelor’s degree 22.1% 32.6% 10.5 ppt.
Master’s degree 7.4% 63.6% 56.3 ppt.
Professional degree 1.8% 1.9% 0.1 ppt.
Doctorate 1.3% 0.8% -0.6 ppt.
Bachelor’s or higher 32.6% 98.9% 66.3 ppt.
Citizenship
Noncitizen 2.3% 0.2% -2.1 ppt.
Citizen 97.7% 99.8% 2.1 ppt.
Observations 134,792 4,657

Notes: Differences are for Pennsylvania public school teachers relative to other full-time employees in Pennsylvania, and are measured as percentage point differences where the characteristic is a percentage (e.g., share female) and as percent differences for other characteristics (e.g., weekly salary). Due to rounding, numbers may not always add up to the precise totals.

Source: Author’s analysis of American Community Survey 2011–2015 data (Flood et al. 2017), Employer Costs for Employee Compensation survey 2013 data (BLS 2013), and Pennsylvania Department of Education-2057 Annual Financial Reports. See appendix for further details.

View the underlying data on epi.org.