Teacher shortage as estimated by Sutcher, Darling-Hammond, and Carver-Thomas: Projected teacher supply and demand for new teachers, 2003–2004 through 2024–2025 school years

Year Actual demand for new hires Projected demand for new hires Estimated supply Projected estimated supply
2004 236407.4
2005 251671.4
2006 259968.5
2007 274427.5
2008 247964.2 273615.7
2009 268459.0
2010 272894.2
2011 253202.0
2012 172754.0 172754.0 241766.1
2013 249632.1 231839.2
2014 259531.2 222309.7 222309.7
2015 262031.5 222165.4
2016 259776.8 196068.4
2017 260458.5 187454.6
2018 299813.0 187645.6
2019 295432.5 188357.0
2020 299959.3 189183.9
2021 302092.3 190060.3
2022 306366.3 147135.6
2023 311622.3 128630.2
2024 319509.5 121992.2
2025 316012.8 114902.7

Note: The supply line represents the midpoints of upper- and lower-bound teacher supply estimates. Years on the horizontal axis represent the latter annual year in the school year.

Source: Recreated with permission from Figure 1 in Leib Sutcher, Linda Darling-Hammond, and Desiree Carver-Thomas, A Coming Crisis in Teaching? Teacher Supply, Demand, and Shortages in the U.S., Learning Policy Institute, September 2016. See the report for full analysis of the shortage and for the methodology.

View the underlying data on epi.org.