Why are teachers and nurses underpaid?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can't believe how dumb all of you are seriously

No one is underpaid. Yall are choosing and continuing to stay in a profession. If you are underpaid quit and do a job that pays more

It is supply and demand.

Starting salaries for teachers have increased because of supply and demand

I think some of you are jealous because you have 15 years in and are making peanuts. The pay scale is public knowledge

Props to the nurse on here that actually has some common sense

The current cycle is what happened with entry level IT labor. Look it up.

And yes teaching and nursing are entry level. At least in nursing there is a promotion path vs teaching where a 0 year teacher does the exact same thing as a 30 year teacher.

If you want to be paid more there has to be more job differentiation to allow for higher salaries and guess what its unions that are fighting against that.

I'm another nurse.

There's a promotion path in nursing if you "leave the bedside" and get a master's degree to become a nurse practitioner in a well-compensated field of medicine (speciality medicine like orthopedics or anesthesia) OR if you go into nursing administration. Both are great career paths but are similar to a teacher becoming a curriculum developer for an education company or a principal. There is more money to be made but not in the original role. You also have to pay $100-150K for NP or nurse anesthesia school (prices for a master's in nursing have gone through the roof in recent years--most are >$150K).

I've been a nurse for 20 years and the staring salaries at major hospitals (Hopkins, Georgetown, etc) are the SAME today as they were 20 years ago. A nurse with a bachelors' degree wil start at around $65K. And like teaching there is very room for salary increases unless you change job title and completely leave the traditional nurse role. If you stay working as an ICU nurse (and the world NEEDS experienced ICU nurses) you will likely be making $85K 20 years in.
As a result in a place like DC you either have constant turn-around in these jobs or you have nurses who work in DC put live 2 hours away or you even have hospital bringing in foreign nurses because they will live in boarding home type settings so they can afford to live closer in. Salaries have not kept up with inflation--they have been stable (if not decreased) for 20+ years.

Anyway, it's a constant issue and will continue to be because nursing is an almost entirely female field and has never had a true voice in the healthcare arena. They one market where they do have a voice (because they're heavily unionized) is in California. And there nurses make about twice what they do in DC. A bedside nurse can start for $120K and be at >$150K within a few years.

Also--I wanted to address travel nursing as I know it's been all over the press with the pandemic. There is definitely money to be made but it's not always simple. These are short (8-12 week) contracts and don't always come with benefits (maybe health insurance but never PTO). They are commonly in hospital settings that are particularly hard to work and undesirable: under-staffed, under-supported hospitals. Places that can't retain staff through traditional hiring channels so they have to pay more to a traveling company. It's also difficult to get back-to-back travel contracts. So you may make $$ for 12 weeks but then have no income for 3. Plus the factor that you have to travel which is difficult if not impossible to do with kids and a partner (hey guys, we're moving to Boise for 3 months. Pack up!)

There's also a promotion path for teachers: They can eventually become principals and other senior school administrators. But instead it seems some of the PPs want to stay in the same entry-level job for 30 years while also making executive-level salaries.

I'm not sure anyone is looking for executive level salaries but just a living wage.

I was hired as a new nurse in 1999 for $65K. That is same salary being given to nurses in DC (with a bachelor's degree) today in 2022. Instead of increasing salaries, hospitals are finding sources of cheaper labor (foreign grads, unlicensed personnel, higher nurse-to-patient ratios). None are good for patient care.
Instead of increasing teachers salaries, states are finding cheaper labor (allowing people to teach without degrees, etc).

You could increase the starting salaries of these professions by $10-20K/year and you would change a lot. Not executive level salaries. As it stands, there is no way I would have my child go into either profession. You can't afford to live in any area outside of rural America. I mean, you can scrape by but there is no hope of home ownership, etc without a partner who makes more. I have kids in DCPS and my kid's teachers commute in from up to 2 HOURS AWAY because they want to live in a place larger then a one bedroom (they have kids, etc).

This is true for the 10 highest cost of living metro areas, and not true for 95% of the country.

Even in those areas, starting salaries have crept up and in DCPS you can make 100k by year 4 if you are excellent and by year 7-8 if you are good.

[Anonymous]

Nurses are not underpaid. My DIL earns 120K 1.5 years out of college

Teachers - because the job is simple.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's always something with teachers. First during COVID many teachers unions refused to reopen schools, even after vaccines became widely available. The learning loss to our kids was immense. Now it's shifted to pay, even with many teachers making $80k+, solid benefits and oodles of vacation. And tomorrow it's going to be about some other perceived slight. Other workers take pride in their profession and just focus on getting the job done, but with teachers the whining just never ends.

It is laughable that people think unions could keep schools closed. My union's big accomplishment the year before Covid was a fan drive to raise money to buy fans for teachers in schools/classrooms with a/c.

But unions did keep schools closed. DCPS did not reopen until much later because the union told administrators that teachers would simply refuse to show up to work.

In MD, we can’t strike so when districts got their acts together, we went back.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can't believe how dumb all of you are seriously

No one is underpaid. Yall are choosing and continuing to stay in a profession. If you are underpaid quit and do a job that pays more

It is supply and demand.

Starting salaries for teachers have increased because of supply and demand

I think some of you are jealous because you have 15 years in and are making peanuts. The pay scale is public knowledge

Props to the nurse on here that actually has some common sense

The current cycle is what happened with entry level IT labor. Look it up.

And yes teaching and nursing are entry level. At least in nursing there is a promotion path vs teaching where a 0 year teacher does the exact same thing as a 30 year teacher.

If you want to be paid more there has to be more job differentiation to allow for higher salaries and guess what its unions that are fighting against that.

I'm another nurse.

There's a promotion path in nursing if you "leave the bedside" and get a master's degree to become a nurse practitioner in a well-compensated field of medicine (speciality medicine like orthopedics or anesthesia) OR if you go into nursing administration. Both are great career paths but are similar to a teacher becoming a curriculum developer for an education company or a principal. There is more money to be made but not in the original role. You also have to pay $100-150K for NP or nurse anesthesia school (prices for a master's in nursing have gone through the roof in recent years--most are >$150K).

I've been a nurse for 20 years and the staring salaries at major hospitals (Hopkins, Georgetown, etc) are the SAME today as they were 20 years ago. A nurse with a bachelors' degree wil start at around $65K. And like teaching there is very room for salary increases unless you change job title and completely leave the traditional nurse role. If you stay working as an ICU nurse (and the world NEEDS experienced ICU nurses) you will likely be making $85K 20 years in.
As a result in a place like DC you either have constant turn-around in these jobs or you have nurses who work in DC put live 2 hours away or you even have hospital bringing in foreign nurses because they will live in boarding home type settings so they can afford to live closer in. Salaries have not kept up with inflation--they have been stable (if not decreased) for 20+ years.

Anyway, it's a constant issue and will continue to be because nursing is an almost entirely female field and has never had a true voice in the healthcare arena. They one market where they do have a voice (because they're heavily unionized) is in California. And there nurses make about twice what they do in DC. A bedside nurse can start for $120K and be at >$150K within a few years.

Also--I wanted to address travel nursing as I know it's been all over the press with the pandemic. There is definitely money to be made but it's not always simple. These are short (8-12 week) contracts and don't always come with benefits (maybe health insurance but never PTO). They are commonly in hospital settings that are particularly hard to work and undesirable: under-staffed, under-supported hospitals. Places that can't retain staff through traditional hiring channels so they have to pay more to a traveling company. It's also difficult to get back-to-back travel contracts. So you may make $$ for 12 weeks but then have no income for 3. Plus the factor that you have to travel which is difficult if not impossible to do with kids and a partner (hey guys, we're moving to Boise for 3 months. Pack up!)

There's also a promotion path for teachers: They can eventually become principals and other senior school administrators. But instead it seems some of the PPs want to stay in the same entry-level job for 30 years while also making executive-level salaries.

I'm not sure anyone is looking for executive level salaries but just a living wage.

I was hired as a new nurse in 1999 for $65K. That is same salary being given to nurses in DC (with a bachelor's degree) today in 2022. Instead of increasing salaries, hospitals are finding sources of cheaper labor (foreign grads, unlicensed personnel, higher nurse-to-patient ratios). None are good for patient care.
Instead of increasing teachers salaries, states are finding cheaper labor (allowing people to teach without degrees, etc).

You could increase the starting salaries of these professions by $10-20K/year and you would change a lot. Not executive level salaries. As it stands, there is no way I would have my child go into either profession. You can't afford to live in any area outside of rural America. I mean, you can scrape by but there is no hope of home ownership, etc without a partner who makes more. I have kids in DCPS and my kid's teachers commute in from up to 2 HOURS AWAY because they want to live in a place larger then a one bedroom (they have kids, etc).

This is true for a lot of fields, wage stagnation is a huge issue in the US. My mom is an engineer who has worked on and off as a contractor for the main employer in our small town....got mad last year that she had the same hourly rate as in 1999. My partner is a professor making $60k and this conversation made me curious...I looked it up and the average salary for a professor in 1999 was $58k. (This is one reason for the exodus from academia to tech.) I'm a fed, so you can look all that up, but the interesting thing there is that the boomers who've retired from the jobs me and my millennial peers are in were a full grade level higher. The agency has systematically "downgraded" the same work as people retire.

I'm not discounting the impact this has on teachers or nurses! Just saying that thinking it's unique to one field pits us middle class workers against each other or keeps us from seeing the big picture, when *most* of us have lost purchasing power over the last 20 years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can't believe how dumb all of you are seriously

No one is underpaid. Yall are choosing and continuing to stay in a profession. If you are underpaid quit and do a job that pays more

It is supply and demand.

Starting salaries for teachers have increased because of supply and demand

I think some of you are jealous because you have 15 years in and are making peanuts. The pay scale is public knowledge

Props to the nurse on here that actually has some common sense

The current cycle is what happened with entry level IT labor. Look it up.

And yes teaching and nursing are entry level. At least in nursing there is a promotion path vs teaching where a 0 year teacher does the exact same thing as a 30 year teacher.

If you want to be paid more there has to be more job differentiation to allow for higher salaries and guess what its unions that are fighting against that.

I'm another nurse.

There's a promotion path in nursing if you "leave the bedside" and get a master's degree to become a nurse practitioner in a well-compensated field of medicine (speciality medicine like orthopedics or anesthesia) OR if you go into nursing administration. Both are great career paths but are similar to a teacher becoming a curriculum developer for an education company or a principal. There is more money to be made but not in the original role. You also have to pay $100-150K for NP or nurse anesthesia school (prices for a master's in nursing have gone through the roof in recent years--most are >$150K).

I've been a nurse for 20 years and the staring salaries at major hospitals (Hopkins, Georgetown, etc) are the SAME today as they were 20 years ago. A nurse with a bachelors' degree wil start at around $65K. And like teaching there is very room for salary increases unless you change job title and completely leave the traditional nurse role. If you stay working as an ICU nurse (and the world NEEDS experienced ICU nurses) you will likely be making $85K 20 years in.
As a result in a place like DC you either have constant turn-around in these jobs or you have nurses who work in DC put live 2 hours away or you even have hospital bringing in foreign nurses because they will live in boarding home type settings so they can afford to live closer in. Salaries have not kept up with inflation--they have been stable (if not decreased) for 20+ years.

Anyway, it's a constant issue and will continue to be because nursing is an almost entirely female field and has never had a true voice in the healthcare arena. They one market where they do have a voice (because they're heavily unionized) is in California. And there nurses make about twice what they do in DC. A bedside nurse can start for $120K and be at >$150K within a few years.

Also--I wanted to address travel nursing as I know it's been all over the press with the pandemic. There is definitely money to be made but it's not always simple. These are short (8-12 week) contracts and don't always come with benefits (maybe health insurance but never PTO). They are commonly in hospital settings that are particularly hard to work and undesirable: under-staffed, under-supported hospitals. Places that can't retain staff through traditional hiring channels so they have to pay more to a traveling company. It's also difficult to get back-to-back travel contracts. So you may make $$ for 12 weeks but then have no income for 3. Plus the factor that you have to travel which is difficult if not impossible to do with kids and a partner (hey guys, we're moving to Boise for 3 months. Pack up!)

There's also a promotion path for teachers: They can eventually become principals and other senior school administrators. But instead it seems some of the PPs want to stay in the same entry-level job for 30 years while also making executive-level salaries.

I'm not sure anyone is looking for executive level salaries but just a living wage.

I was hired as a new nurse in 1999 for $65K. That is same salary being given to nurses in DC (with a bachelor's degree) today in 2022. Instead of increasing salaries, hospitals are finding sources of cheaper labor (foreign grads, unlicensed personnel, higher nurse-to-patient ratios). None are good for patient care.
Instead of increasing teachers salaries, states are finding cheaper labor (allowing people to teach without degrees, etc).

You could increase the starting salaries of these professions by $10-20K/year and you would change a lot. Not executive level salaries. As it stands, there is no way I would have my child go into either profession. You can't afford to live in any area outside of rural America. I mean, you can scrape by but there is no hope of home ownership, etc without a partner who makes more. I have kids in DCPS and my kid's teachers commute in from up to 2 HOURS AWAY because they want to live in a place larger then a one bedroom (they have kids, etc).

This is true for a lot of fields, wage stagnation is a huge issue in the US. My mom is an engineer who has worked on and off as a contractor for the main employer in our small town....got mad last year that she had the same hourly rate as in 1999. My partner is a professor making $60k and this conversation made me curious...I looked it up and the average salary for a professor in 1999 was $58k. (This is one reason for the exodus from academia to tech.) I'm a fed, so you can look all that up, but the interesting thing there is that the boomers who've retired from the jobs me and my millennial peers are in were a full grade level higher. The agency has systematically "downgraded" the same work as people retire.

I'm not discounting the impact this has on teachers or nurses! Just saying that thinking it's unique to one field pits us middle class workers against each other or keeps us from seeing the big picture, when *most* of us have lost purchasing power over the last 20 years.

DP
Understood, but the OP addressed nursing and teaching specifically.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Nurses are not underpaid. My DIL earns 120K 1.5 years out of college

Teachers - because the job is simple.

Tell us you’re not a teacher without telling us you’re not a teacher.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Nurses are not underpaid. My DIL earns 120K 1.5 years out of college

Teachers - because the job is simple.

so why, then, are there such shortages in these fields? if teaching is such a simple gig, and nursing so highly paid, presumably people would be clamoring to get these jobs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can't believe how dumb all of you are seriously

No one is underpaid. Yall are choosing and continuing to stay in a profession. If you are underpaid quit and do a job that pays more

It is supply and demand.

Starting salaries for teachers have increased because of supply and demand

I think some of you are jealous because you have 15 years in and are making peanuts. The pay scale is public knowledge

Props to the nurse on here that actually has some common sense

The current cycle is what happened with entry level IT labor. Look it up.

And yes teaching and nursing are entry level. At least in nursing there is a promotion path vs teaching where a 0 year teacher does the exact same thing as a 30 year teacher.

If you want to be paid more there has to be more job differentiation to allow for higher salaries and guess what its unions that are fighting against that.

I'm another nurse.

There's a promotion path in nursing if you "leave the bedside" and get a master's degree to become a nurse practitioner in a well-compensated field of medicine (speciality medicine like orthopedics or anesthesia) OR if you go into nursing administration. Both are great career paths but are similar to a teacher becoming a curriculum developer for an education company or a principal. There is more money to be made but not in the original role. You also have to pay $100-150K for NP or nurse anesthesia school (prices for a master's in nursing have gone through the roof in recent years--most are >$150K).

I've been a nurse for 20 years and the staring salaries at major hospitals (Hopkins, Georgetown, etc) are the SAME today as they were 20 years ago. A nurse with a bachelors' degree wil start at around $65K. And like teaching there is very room for salary increases unless you change job title and completely leave the traditional nurse role. If you stay working as an ICU nurse (and the world NEEDS experienced ICU nurses) you will likely be making $85K 20 years in.
As a result in a place like DC you either have constant turn-around in these jobs or you have nurses who work in DC put live 2 hours away or you even have hospital bringing in foreign nurses because they will live in boarding home type settings so they can afford to live closer in. Salaries have not kept up with inflation--they have been stable (if not decreased) for 20+ years.

Anyway, it's a constant issue and will continue to be because nursing is an almost entirely female field and has never had a true voice in the healthcare arena. They one market where they do have a voice (because they're heavily unionized) is in California. And there nurses make about twice what they do in DC. A bedside nurse can start for $120K and be at >$150K within a few years.

Also--I wanted to address travel nursing as I know it's been all over the press with the pandemic. There is definitely money to be made but it's not always simple. These are short (8-12 week) contracts and don't always come with benefits (maybe health insurance but never PTO). They are commonly in hospital settings that are particularly hard to work and undesirable: under-staffed, under-supported hospitals. Places that can't retain staff through traditional hiring channels so they have to pay more to a traveling company. It's also difficult to get back-to-back travel contracts. So you may make $$ for 12 weeks but then have no income for 3. Plus the factor that you have to travel which is difficult if not impossible to do with kids and a partner (hey guys, we're moving to Boise for 3 months. Pack up!)

There's also a promotion path for teachers: They can eventually become principals and other senior school administrators. But instead it seems some of the PPs want to stay in the same entry-level job for 30 years while also making executive-level salaries.

I'm not sure anyone is looking for executive level salaries but just a living wage.

I was hired as a new nurse in 1999 for $65K. That is same salary being given to nurses in DC (with a bachelor's degree) today in 2022. Instead of increasing salaries, hospitals are finding sources of cheaper labor (foreign grads, unlicensed personnel, higher nurse-to-patient ratios). None are good for patient care.
Instead of increasing teachers salaries, states are finding cheaper labor (allowing people to teach without degrees, etc).

You could increase the starting salaries of these professions by $10-20K/year and you would change a lot. Not executive level salaries. As it stands, there is no way I would have my child go into either profession. You can't afford to live in any area outside of rural America. I mean, you can scrape by but there is no hope of home ownership, etc without a partner who makes more. I have kids in DCPS and my kid's teachers commute in from up to 2 HOURS AWAY because they want to live in a place larger then a one bedroom (they have kids, etc).

This is true for a lot of fields, wage stagnation is a huge issue in the US. My mom is an engineer who has worked on and off as a contractor for the main employer in our small town....got mad last year that she had the same hourly rate as in 1999. My partner is a professor making $60k and this conversation made me curious...I looked it up and the average salary for a professor in 1999 was $58k. (This is one reason for the exodus from academia to tech.) I'm a fed, so you can look all that up, but the interesting thing there is that the boomers who've retired from the jobs me and my millennial peers are in were a full grade level higher. The agency has systematically "downgraded" the same work as people retire.

I'm not discounting the impact this has on teachers or nurses! Just saying that thinking it's unique to one field pits us middle class workers against each other or keeps us from seeing the big picture, when *most* of us have lost purchasing power over the last 20 years.

DP
Understood, but the OP addressed nursing and teaching specifically.

I think PP's point was that teachers are not that unique when it comes to wage stagnation, although teachers certainly complain the loudest about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nurses are not underpaid. My DIL earns 120K 1.5 years out of college

Teachers - because the job is simple.

so why, then, are there such shortages in these fields? if teaching is such a simple gig, and nursing so highly paid, presumably people would be clamoring to get these jobs.

Because there's shortage in all jobs, and teaching has artificial barriers to entry.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Nurses are not underpaid. My DIL earns 120K 1.5 years out of college

Teachers - because the job is simple.

Where does your DIL live? What type of nursing does she do? Is she a nurse practitioner with a master's or doctorate degree? Unless she's a travel nurse (and travel RN's aren't typically that close to being out of school) or in management (again, not typical for a nurse who's a relatively recent graduate) I find it hard to believe she's making that much money only 1.5 years after getting her BSN. I'm an RN with a BSN and have been a nurse for 18 years. Right now I'm bedside hospital nursing (I've worked in a number of different areas of nursing-I like variety) and I'm making a base salary of $50 per hour for 36 hours per week which is $93,600 per year if I work three 12.5 hour shifts (we don't get paid for lunch) per week over a 1 year period. However, if the patient census is low or if they've overstaffed for that shift my shift could be cancelled meaning that I won't work and therefore either won't get paid for that day or they'll deduct my PTO. It's an hourly (not a salaried) position. If I'm stuck in traffic and get there 30 minutes late I don't get paid for that time, etc.

On a totally different note, nursing and teaching are unfortunately professions that often don't get the respect that they deserve. I'm not even talking about salary-I'm talking about general respect. I think people who haven't done either tend to think they are easier jobs than they really are. There seems to be a big misconception that nurses simply follow physician's orders and clean patients. Nursing involves a lot of critical thinking. It takes a long time to really know what you are doing as a nurse and the stakes are high. Of course like any profession there are good nurses and lousy nurses. Still, there are much easier, lower stress ways to make a living. I would not become a nurse if I could do it all over again. I'm not complaining about my salary (which I think is fine)-I just wish that I had a job making the same salary doing something less stressful in a different field with a regular Monday-Friday schedule. I'm 41 and don't want to return to school to change careers (My oldest will be college aged in 10 years and we need to be saving money for our kids' educations versus paying for me to go back) but I would tell my younger self to find another career.

[Anonymous]

People routinely come on here and say that "my so and so relative makes a lot of money in nursing." However, when the actual nurses come on it's a fraction of what some shadow relative makes somewhere else in the country.

When the details come out, generally the nurses making "a lot of money" are a nurse anesthetists which is about 0.001% of the nursing work force. Kind of like saying "my uncle makes 1 million dollars per year as a Biglaw partner, therefore I'll go on DCUM and state that all lawyers make a million dollars per year".

[Anonymous]

This thread is way too focused on teacher pay and not enough on results. Student test scores in the US lag far behind most other developed countries. Some teachers are superstars but others are terrible. So pay should be tied much more to student outcomes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:People routinely come on here and say that "my so and so relative makes a lot of money in nursing." However, when the actual nurses come on it's a fraction of what some shadow relative makes somewhere else in the country.

When the details come out, generally the nurses making "a lot of money" are a nurse anesthetists which is about 0.001% of the nursing work force. Kind of like saying "my uncle makes 1 million dollars per year as a Biglaw partner, therefore I'll go on DCUM and state that all lawyers make a million dollars per year".

+1!! Very true.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This thread is way too focused on teacher pay and not enough on results. Student test scores in the US lag far behind most other developed countries. Some teachers are superstars but others are terrible. So pay should be tied much more to student outcomes.

it's already hard enough to get teachers in rural and Urban areas, what do you think having the outcomes of a teacher in inner city Baltimore or some tiny rural district in west Virginia compared to a teacher in McLean or Bethesda is going to do? And do you believe that the US's education issues are the fault of...teachers? wow.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This thread is way too focused on teacher pay and not enough on results. Student test scores in the US lag far behind most other developed countries. Some teachers are superstars but others are terrible. So pay should be tied much more to student outcomes.

it's already hard enough to get teachers in rural and Urban areas, what do you think having the outcomes of a teacher in inner city Baltimore or some tiny rural district in west Virginia compared to a teacher in McLean or Bethesda is going to do? And do you believe that the US's education issues are the fault of...teachers? wow.

So there's no metric that cam be used to evaluate teacher performance?