The brief’s key findings are:
- Whether public teachers are over- or under-paid is a source of lively debate.
- This study sheds new light on the topic by using more accurate estimates of benefit costs.
- The results show that teachers earn roughly the same as similar private sector workers.
- However, given cuts to pension benefits for teachers hired in the past decade, relative compensation is likely to decline over time.
- And uncompetitive compensation may make it harder to recruit high-quality teachers, potentially leading to worse outcomes for students.