[caymanjim]

This is also misleading. Medical benefits are comparable to white-collar professional services jobs. Most teachers have payroll deductions to pay for a portion of their insurance. In 15 states where teachers receive pensions, they receive them in lieu of Social Security benefits. They don't pay into Social Security, and they don't receive Social Security upon retirement. They only receive their pension. If they don't work as teachers long enough to receive a full pension, they're losing out. Even if they switch to a qualifying job, those years of non-contribution to Social Security reduce their eventual benefits. Most states are phasing out pensions and replacing them with 403(b) plans, and/or making teachers contribute to the pension plans out of their salaries. Aside from insurance and retirement, teachers don't have nearly as many benefits and perks as corporate workers do.

Part of the reason teacher salaries are lower on an annualized basis is that they don't work during the summer, but considering that their salaries are already on the low side given the education requirements, that washes out.

I'm not trying to paint a sob story for teachers. They're usually comfortably middle class, and if they put in 20-30 years, they're usually retiring comfortably. But you're making it sound like they have a benefits package above and beyond other employment. It's simply not true. Plenty of other jobs (and I don't just mean tech jobs) that require a four-year degree come with far better benefits, 401(k) matching, and you don't have to gamble on committing your entire career to staying in the same career in the same state in order to retain the value.

[WalterBright]

> But you're making it sound like they have a benefits package above and beyond other employment.

They do. The biggest clue is the difficulty in obtaining what the value of that benefits package is.

> put in 20-30 years, they're usually retiring comfortably

I find it amazing that one can retire comfortably at 42 if you're a schoolteacher. What other job in the private sector offers that?

[caymanjim]

> They do. The biggest clue is the difficulty in obtaining what the value of that benefits package is.

Because you can't find the value of the benefits, that's a clue that it's excessive? Teacher pay and benefits are 100% public information. Your earlier claim that teacher health benefits in WA were $36,000 per year is patently absurd. An ACA exchange medical plan available to anyone costs under $500/mo with an annual out-of-pocket maximum of $6000. The state may pay $36,000/year for their benefits (but no, they don't, not even close), but even if that were true, if you're comparing it to market value, that's worth $12,000 at most to the teacher.

> I find it amazing that one can retire comfortably at 42 if you're a schoolteacher. What other job in the private sector offers that?

I shouldn't even have claimed that they can retire comfortably. Quoting from [1]:

> For example, under a system with a 1.5 percent multiplier: A teacher retiring with a final average salary of $60,000 and 20 years of service would collect a pension of $18,000 annually.

Now this is a nice perk if you start at age 42 and live another 40 years, but it's not a comfortable living. It's barely over the poverty line. It's unclear from this example if it's in a state that excludes Social Security benefits, but even if it doesn't exclude them, that's not a lot of money.

From the same article:

> Across the nation, teachers pay on average 16 percent of the plan premiums for individual coverage, lower than the 21 percent average for workers in private industry. But for family coverage, teachers pay a comparable portion of the premium to private-sector workers, according to 2017 data from the Labor Department.

As I stated previously, most teachers already contribute to their health insurance, and as I stated above, the maximum value of that insurance is only $12,000.

Feel free to explore further on your own. I'm tapping out.

[1]: https://www.edweek.org/ew/issues/teacher-pay/index.html

[WalterBright]

Your figures are nice, but do not include what it costs per teacher to provide those benefits.

> Teacher pay and benefits are 100% public information

It's easy to find pay, but I haven't been able to find the cost of the benefits.

> I shouldn't even have claimed that they can retire comfortably.

I'd be interested if you can find any private pension plan that gives out anything at all starting at age 42 and going for the rest of their life (another 40 years). Even Social Security doesn't kick in until 62.

> most teachers already contribute to their health insurance

The figure of interest here is what does that cost the government to provide it?

[topkai22]

My school districts budget book indicates total benefit costs are about 43% of total salary. (https://www.washoeschools.net/Page/550)

The published teacher pay schedule indicates that teachers are paid around $50k for a 9 month schedule (https://www.washoeschools.net/Page/841)

At 43% that's roughly $21500 in benefits. Health insurance for a family of 4 on an ACA platinum plan is ~$19000/Year (https://news.ehealthinsurance.com/_ir/68/20205/eHealth_2020_...)

Since not all teachers will have families or elect for district health insurance, I think it's safe to assume health insurance is probably around the $9000-13000 per person range to the district.

Note that Nevada has pretty low per student spending for the US, so it is quite possible other municipalities Will spend more. This seems to be the case (or my math is bad) as the BLS reports a much higher benefits to pay ratio for state and local government employees nationwide - about 60% (https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/ecec.pdf)

[WalterBright]

Thanks for the figures!