How much do teachers make in NC? More than most people think

RALEIGH – Ah, yes, the years long debate about teacher pay in the Old North State is not going away anytime soon. Democrats won’t drop the issue until North Carolina breaks the record for most profligate education spending in the country, no doubt something Big Government liberals could be proud of. And those on the Right are unlikely to drop the issue until the Left stops pushing an inaccurate narrative about teacher pay that the public happens to be readily absorbing.

So how much do they make, really? Luckily Terry Stoops at the John Locke Foundation is on the education beat, and he presents the numbers in this work up here. Teachers make a lot more than most people think, as it turns out.

“The N.C. Department of Public Instruction (NC DPI) calculates teacher pay averages by February of each year.  Because NC DPI has not produced the official figure for the current school year, we use a salary estimate produced by analysts at the N.C. General Assembly’s Fiscal Research Division.  The Social Security, retirement, and health insurance figures are based on provisions in the state budget.

Comparisons of teacher pay across states are good for attention-grabbing headlines but often little else.  Even so, we mention the popular National Education Association (NEA) ranking below, noting a few of its many weaknesses and what a proper comparison might show.”

The latest @NCCivitas poll asked likely voters what is the average yearly salary for a teacher in NC. 54% said less than $40k a year. They are incorrect. It’s actually $53,700; $72,628 when you add in benefits.
Get the facts:https://t.co/90DXNWBgZf
.@terrystoops

— Becki Gray (@beckigray) October 26, 2018

Got that? More than half of people think that teachers make less than $40,000 a year, when in actuality they make more than $50,000 a year (and more than $70,000 a year when considering benefits).

That is the power of the Left’s messaging, folks. If you mislead people incessantly enough, eventually people star to run with it.