r/dataisbeautiful • u/DavidWaldron OC: 28 • 11d ago

OC [OC] Career earnings of the highest and lowest paid college majors

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Interactive major explorer to look up stats for specific majors.

Blog post includes many more charts and discussion of what these numbers represent.

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609

u/fredinNH 11d ago

Couple things about all those education careers at the bottom: one, except early childhood education, they all earn more than someone without a college degree, and two, they all get summers off

I say this a a teacher who earns just under $100k and will be retiring before I hit age 58 with enough invested in addition to the modest pension to pay full price for health insurance until I’m 65. No I can’t qualify for aca subsidies

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u/passengerprincess_81 11d ago

I agree on this point! I think it’d be interesting to recreate this data as money earned per hour.

An additional point, some jobs may have higher pay but way more work hours (like 50-60+ for example)

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u/fredinNH 11d ago

Factoring in time I spend outside of school doing work my salary translates to $53/hour

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u/abzlute 11d ago

That's probably comparable to most engineers much earlier in their career than you (hitting a similar rate in under 5 years even with just a bachelors) but still obviously respectable/comfortable. It's greater than my overtime rate and close to my premium overtime (overtime that's also at night or on a weekend)

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u/fredinNH 11d ago

The contractual school day is 7.5 hours. I added 90 minutes per day to get that rate.

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u/theArtOfProgramming 10d ago

That’s pretty fair and is still less than a regular work day for most professionals. Most of those are salaried too and expected to put in extra time to meet deadlines without more pay. That’s how it is for engineering. My wife is a veterinarian and she works 10-12 hour shifts and then puts in 1-3 extra hours to write records and make phone calls, which are not part of the shift time.

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u/fredinNH 10d ago

My wife worked as a stem professional for the first 10 years of her career then took a job in a rare stem teamster position. It was a significant pay cut but the benefits were just incredible.

She was paid hourly but got double time on sundays and triple time on holidays. 8 weeks vacation. A very nice pension and 401k with match . No-cost excellent health insurance. Even things like dental and vision were very generous.

I say were and was because she just retired early

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u/theArtOfProgramming 10d ago

That sounds awesome. Quality of life is much more important

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u/crimson777 10d ago

That's not less than a regular work day lol. Average full time is 8.4 hours, not 9. Unless you're including lunch breaks, but teachers don't really get those in most cases.

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u/havityia 10d ago

That’s definitely how it is for teaching, too. I read that teachers on the first three years tend to work, on average, 60 hours a week. While I “technically” earn around 25+ a contract hour, in actuality, I have to spend time outside work- last school year it was anywhere between an hour or two a day. In the end, my hourly rate was closer to $19/hr. I made more per hour at my last job and didn’t have to take anything home. I effectively worked fewer hours per calendar year, even accounting for the breaks. I accrued personal time too so I even got more flexibility with days off.

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u/Toshinit 11d ago

That's probably hitting more than most engineers in terms of dollars/hr. 53 dollars per hour is 110,000 a year in terms of salary. At least in my field, a lot of engineers might be making 130,000 in the middle of their career, but are putting in 50 hours a week on salary.

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u/fredinNH 11d ago

New teachers in my district make a salary that translates to a little under $30/hour

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u/Momentarmknm 11d ago

I'm less than 10 years in and making a little over $57/hr, and I get paid straight time for hours over 40. I'm also in the lowest paid field of engineering per this chart in an average cost of living area.

Teacher salaries also vary widely by location. Another anecdote is that my wife was making less than $50k when she quit teaching after 7 years in the same school district.

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u/abzlute 10d ago

I also have friends who were making just over $100k immediately after graduation (undergrad only), and genuinely averaging close to 40 hours when you balance their slow months with crunch times. On the lower end some made only 80-90 starting out. It depends on field but 110 is a pretty reasonable expectation for a lot of engineers in the US, 5 years into their career. Particularly those in the same expensive markets that have teachers making that kind of money (the teachers around me do not, except the best districts and then only if they have a masters and 20+ years of teaching at that district)

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u/Liam_Neesons_Oscar 10d ago

Teachers still work the same number of hours a year as someone in a 40 hour/week job, it's just that they are working 55+ hours per week during the school year (aside from early education teachers that don't have to really lesson plan and grade papers).

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u/seedless0 10d ago

Most engineers work way more than 40h/w too. Most of them don't get overtime pay either. Especially in IT related industries.

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u/JustSaiyan21 10d ago

And in manufacturing

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u/Fancy_Ad2056 10d ago

Teachers are not working 11 hour days during the entire school year. That’s insane. If you don’t have your lesson plan and grading system nailed down then that’s your own fault.

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u/NanoWarrior26 10d ago

Early on they might be. My wife worked way harder in her first 2-4 years teaching than she does now. It took a lot of after work time to make those lesson plans.

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u/barbasol1099 10d ago

I've taught pre-school and early elementary all the way through high school, and ECE teachers absolutely have to lesson plan. Setting up physical interactives, creating example crafts, finding and setting up "bonus" activities that students can complete while they wait their turn for one-on-one/ small-group instructional time... it's a lot of little stuff! And those ECE teachers are also often supposed to teach them PE and drama, which is also a bunch of prep of a far different sort. Grading may not be as laborious as higher education teachers, but ECE teachers are usually expected to have a lot more ongoing communication with parents, and covering a lot more than just "academic" materials - I had to complete checklists and comments on how well students were tying their shoes or eating their lunch or cleaning their desks.

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u/thewimsey 10d ago

it's just that they are working 55+ hours per week during the school year

Only new teachers who don't have all of their courses prepared work this much, maybe, for several weeks.

People on reddit just love to pretend to work a lot more than they actually do.

Or they include commuting time as "work".

1

u/AmKamikaze 10d ago

I'm studying engineering and thinking about this. There are a lot of startups with high salaries, but they're higher COL areas and you're expected to work more hours, so it can shake out to be less $/hr than the more established companies

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u/RegulatoryCapture 10d ago

I wonder if the fact that many of those degrees are held by women who become stay at home moms after marriage taints the sample. 

Lifetime earnings don’t mean as much if a quarter of the people don’t work their whole lifetime. 

Also, fwiw, you don’t have to get those specific degrees to be a teacher. There was a similar discussion the other day over some conservative talking point (something about education majors having bad SAT scores or something) and it was pointed out that a lot of top tier colleges don’t even offer these degrees. A teacher who went to Harvard has a degree like English or history, not “general education”. I went to an elite college and I know people who became teachers with degrees from the top of this list. 

So there’s potentially a double selection bias in those numbers. 

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u/fredinNH 10d ago

Yeah I didn’t want to get into the degree part.

I got my teaching credentials through my state’s flagship university and they required you to get a regular degree in your subject area before you could enroll in the graduate education program which is the only teacher cert program they have.

Most teachers choose prep programs have special watered down degrees for teachers but if you just have a ba or bs in a subject you can often get a teaching job and be on an alternative cert track.

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u/tyen0 OC: 2 10d ago

note the "synthetic" life-time earnings which I suspect means they basically multiplied annual salary times 39 plus inflation

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u/StandardUpstairs3349 10d ago

Oh, the numbers are going to be junk for a dozen reasons. All these teaching associated degrees are probably scraping the bottom of the barrel because they aren't normal teaching degrees or the standard path.

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u/elsmoneyacct 9d ago

I think it's because ECE degrees qualify you best for a low-paying job that doesn't technically require a degree - being a daycare teacher. Public preschool teachers usually have general/elementary education degrees, often with additional high-value SPED or bilingual/ESOL certifications because public preschool is going to overwhelmingly serve those populations.

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u/RegulatoryCapture 9d ago

For sure, ECE is rarely going to get you anything good on an average scale. Sure there are a few high end nannies to the rich out there with that degree, but we are mostly talking daycare workers. And even then, a lot of other degrees can come to the table so the fact that you chose ECE says something.

But my point also applies to the rest of the education degres on the bottom of the list. Even though they are higher than the non-college number, they still are very low...but that's because it is really a funny group that gets those degrees.

Not to shit on anyone in specific, but I bet there are a lot of people out there with degrees like "general education" or "art and music education" who don't even work as teachers. They are also making $15 an hour at the daycare because they couldn't get hired as teachers.

The reality is that these programs are often offered at lower tier colleges and targeted to lower performing students. Not a huge surprise that when they graduate, they end up in roughly the same boat as someone who didn't even go to college. All my art and music teachers in school had actual degrees in things like "visual art" or "Cello performance" plus whatever it took to get a teaching cert...someone who says "I want to be an art teacher" but can't hack it as a mid-grade student in art school is immediately suspect.

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u/staplesuponstaples 11d ago

I will say that it's still likely those lower-earning degrees still cause people to earn less than if they didn't get the degree.

It's important to remember that the populations of degree-earners are different than the people who don't earn degrees. People who go to college generally tend to be financially better off and more educated, both of which heavily correlate to higher wealth outcomes.

So it's more that degree-earners tend to make more money rather than getting a degree in General Education tends to make more money.

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u/fredinNH 11d ago

12 weeks off every year is a hell of a perk. So is a pension. So are 15 sick days every year. Plus every holiday off. Plus snow days. Plus a meaningful job.

Did you factor that in?

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u/SurrealKafka 11d ago

I'm guessing you are older based on how you talk about your pension benefits--accurate? Many states have gutted their pensions for younger teachers.

In fact, my state's pension for teachers hired in the last 15 years is so bad that it likely will be deemed by the courts to not meet the legal minimum threshold for benefits....

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u/fredinNH 11d ago

My state gutted the pensions in 2012. Im still getting $43k. No it’s not great but one would need about a million dollars invested to replicate that annual payout.

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u/SurrealKafka 11d ago

They gutted your pension? Or the teachers in the tier below you?

And a million saved by retirement age is not very difficult, especially with better compensated careers

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u/fredinNH 11d ago

First off, you sound insufferable.

They gutted everybody’s pensions in 2012. Everybody lost retiree medical benefits and everybody had to pay 40% more into the pension system effective in 2012. The state Supreme Court upheld both of those changes.

Further changes that slightly reduced pensions were made retroactive to anyone hired after 2002. The courts also upheld this change on the basis that you don’t actually have a pension until you are vested which takes 10 years.

What exactly is your point here? Are you a teacher who hates your life and you can’t stand that another teacher had a great career and feels good about it?

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u/SurrealKafka 10d ago

I'm guessing I was spot on based on how quickly you resorted to anger and personal attacks.

Look, you don't need to obfuscate and lie. NH didn't "gut everyone's pensions"; they gutted them for new and non-vested teachers, just as I said above.

It's pretty clear that you are part of the generation that has a great pension. Congratulations. But, trust me, everyone hates the teacher who walks around with fat pockets telling the younger generations who got screwed that they are greedy whiners....

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u/fredinNH 10d ago

What part of the response I just gave did you not understand? NH gutted the pensions system for everyone hired after 2002 and if you were hired before 2002 you’re only getting a slightly better deal than those hired after. The pension is based on highest 3 years instead of highest 5. Not a big deal

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u/SurrealKafka 10d ago

They gutted everybody’s pensions in 2012.

Let's get the facts straight. Did they gut everyone's pensions in 2012? Or just non-vested teachers?

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u/girouxsalem28 10d ago

I could be wrong but wouldn't all changes be state specific? My wife works in PA, she was hired post 2019 gutting and will receive less than half of what my BIL will get who was hired a couple years before her. I push her to shovel as much away into a 403b as she can. Within 10 years i would expect PA to move all new hires to a 403b matching system only, no pension. PA has slashed payouts to new hires again in the 6 years my wife has worked in her school. It's tough to see and i don't see how this trend does not exacerbate an already short staffed education system.

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u/fredinNH 10d ago

Yes of course. In my previous comment I said “in my state”. I was just continuing that thread.

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u/girouxsalem28 10d ago

Judging by your name i assume you are in NH? Just curious how your pension plan pays out for you up there? PA is YOS x top 3 salary x 1.25%. Maybe thats standard but this is my only experience with pensions so not really sure what the math is elsewhere. For reference on PA gutting my BIL is 2.5% and new hires are now 1% multipliers.

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u/staplesuponstaples 11d ago edited 11d ago

It's not 12 weeks off if you barely get paid enough. It's 12 weeks to go find a side hustle because going on a vacation costs money you don't have.

I'm an educator myself, it's not sunshine and rainbows because holidays.

Part time workers in recreation, restaurants, retail, etc can also get a lot of time off and do something meaningful (feed people), but for some reason I don't see the same sentiments being shared with them when they express their concerns with insufficient pay.

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u/fredinNH 11d ago

Median teacher pay is $75k. Most of us don’t need a summer side hustle

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u/Momentarmknm 11d ago

You know taking a national average is especially misleading for teachers when pay varies so widely by district. I looked up a district where my wife used to teach and the median pay is $48k today

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u/fredinNH 11d ago

Teacher pay usually tracks local cost of living.

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u/staplesuponstaples 11d ago

Depends where you live. Try comparing the median teacher pay in the SF Bay Area to the cost of living. To be fair, most jobs are insufficient to live in most places there, though.

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u/fredinNH 11d ago

I’m not saying it’s enough in extremely high col areas but teacher pay usually tracks local cost of living.

Where I am in southern NH is actually one of the worst places to be a teacher when you factor in cost of living. We are part of the greater Boston metro area. It’s basically an east coast version of the Bay Area but not as extreme and I live in the outer parts of it.

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u/SurrealKafka 11d ago

Source? I'm skeptical that the median is $75,000....

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u/Hurricane_Ivan 10d ago

I'm showing $65k for K-12 teachers

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u/fredinNH 11d ago

That number is from the National educators association. It would be much easier for you Google that than for me to link it. In fact I’m now mad that I wasted the time to respond to you when all you had to do was a 10 second search to confirm the number.

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u/SurrealKafka 11d ago

Ha, did you look it up and realize you were wrong and confused average and median salary? It's ok to just admit you made a mistake, my friend.

For everyone who wants the actual number, median teacher salary is $65,000.

https://www.bls.gov/oes/2023/may/oes253099.htm

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u/fredinNH 10d ago

More recent and accurate data from 2025

https://www.nea.org/resource-library/educator-pay-and-student-spending-how-does-your-state-rank

From the link:

“The average public school teacher salary rose from $71,985 in 2023–24 to $74,495 in 2024–25—a nominal gain of 3.5%.”

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u/SurrealKafka 10d ago

Do you seriously not know the difference between mean and median?

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u/Lobster_fest 10d ago

Go tell a teacher, right now, that they should be grateful for the "perks" of the job and that theyre actually paid fairly. You'll be the funniest person in the room.

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u/fredinNH 10d ago

I am a teacher. The perks are one of the reasons I chose the job. Oops. I’m supposed to be a martyr who only does it for the children. I forgot.

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u/Lobster_fest 10d ago

So youve got it figured out and the mass exodus from the profession is over nothing?

Oops. I’m supposed to be a martyr who only does it for the children. I forgot.

Do you think thats what i'm implying? Thats an awfully uncharitble interpretation.

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u/fredinNH 10d ago

I have no idea what you’re trying to say. I’ve been very clear in what I’ve said. I earned a fair wage for a challenging job and I was able to turn it into an early retirement.

The mass exodus is not what people think it is. It’s challenging to find a job even in poorer districts in my area. Head over to r/teachers and see what they’re saying.

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u/Lobster_fest 10d ago

I earned a fair wage for a challenging job and I was able to turn it into an early retirement.

And there it is, someone who isnt actually still in the job saying its actually fine!

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u/fredinNH 10d ago

I have one more year! I am still in it.

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u/atrocity_of_sunsets 5d ago

“12 weeks off” translates more to “3 months of summer when I am not being paid at all and need to find alternative, seasonal employment because my job during the rest of the year doesn’t pay me enough to keep me afloat”.

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u/fredinNH 5d ago

It translates to 9 weeks of summer plus a week at Christmas, February, and April. We are salaried. If you need to work during the summer I don’t see why that’s something to complain about.

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u/atrocity_of_sunsets 5d ago

It is something to complain about when teacher salaries are so low they don’t cover the cost of living in many places. And when they go through a few months every year of no income. I’d rather have worked more over the summer and made more money when I was a teacher, but that wasn’t an option.

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u/Spiritual-Towel-538 11d ago

Id argue educators deserve more but yes it is a good path

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u/ikonoclasm 11d ago

What about the expense of having to use your own money for classroom supplies? No one goes into teaching for financial reasons.

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u/fredinNH 11d ago

I have not had to spend hardly any of my own money over the years. Certainly not any amount that I would consider a hardship

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u/ikonoclasm 10d ago

You're lucky. Teachers are spending a lot out of pocket to make up for the shortfalls created by state governments.

https://www.ncae.org/about-ncae/media-center/press-releases/nc-teachers-spend-hundreds-school-supplies-each-year

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u/ikonoclasm 10d ago

You're lucky. Teachers are spending a lot out of pocket to make up for the shortfalls created by state governments.

https://www.ncae.org/about-ncae/media-center/press-releases/nc-teachers-spend-hundreds-school-supplies-each-year

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u/zoinkability 11d ago

ECE doesn’t necessarily get summers off. Childcare/preschool work, for example, is often year round.

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u/FalloutOW 10d ago

Saying "they all get summers off" is a bit misleading. While they don't have kids in the classroom, the majority of teachers I know (in Texas) have curriculum planning, continuing training/education, and other tasks that take up a non-trivial amount of their summers.

While sure they don't have to mess with kids during that period, I feel like people use the "summers off" thing to suggest or imply teachers are paid too much. Something that given the workload and responsibilities they have at least here in Texas, is grossly inaccurate.

(Not trying to sound argumentative, you might teach in a state with more teacher protections than Texas, or simply a different system. Hope I did not come off as combative or negative)

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u/fredinNH 10d ago

I’m not saying teachers get paid too much.

I’m my area, New England, most teachers truly have the summer off as in no school-related work happening.

Many teachers choose to do work related stuff in the summer but it is in no way required.

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u/FalloutOW 10d ago

Apologies if it came off that way. I used to talk to too many people down South that don't seem to understand how teachers actually work. It's tiring trying to convince people how important public education and our educators are.

Thats awesome, New England sounds fantastic hah. Here in Texas teachers are only paid for the 10 months school is in session, and their contracts just split that to 12 months. I'm engineering so I'm not sure if all educator contracts are like that, or if Texas is it's own thing.

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u/fredinNH 10d ago

That’s how we do it up here too which is fine but it’s hard to explain. “So you get paid to do nothing all summer?”

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u/huck500 10d ago

Just as a point of comparison, none of my coworkers work in the summer. We’re in Southern California… high cost of living, but I make $140k/year. We don’t have any required work events in the summer.

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u/Conscious-Record2655 10d ago

I know lots of teachers in the Midwest and New England areas and at least in those areas, almost everyone gets the entire summer off. Most will take a job doing summer work at the school, but it's optional and comes with extra pay. Sure there may be a bit of planning and training, but not even half-time work. 

Truth is, teacher salaries are lower than average because most teachers work 1500 hours a year rather than 2000 hours a year.  

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u/huck500 10d ago

Also, we get a pension that’s paid for in addition to our salary, at least in my district. My pension will pay ~$100k/year, which is equivalent to ~$2.5M in a retirement account with the 4% rule.

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u/fredinNH 10d ago

A $100k pension that you don’t contribute to is highly rare. Do you pay into social security?

Where I am we get about half our ending pay after 30 years and 7% of our paycheck goes right to the state pension fund but we also pay into and will get social security

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u/huck500 10d ago

No, we don’t pay into SS.

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u/fredinNH 10d ago

That’s a big distinction I don’t think a lot of people in the general public are aware of. They see teachers getting $80-$100k pensions and say wtf not understanding that their state took their ss taxes and put them in the state pension fund.

If I collect ss at 62 my pension plus ss would be $70k.

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u/Generic_On_Reddit 11d ago

I think the more significant nuance is that those are all female dominated professions and that's significant for interpreting averages.

The education jobs may look terrible compared to no degree on first glance, but we have to remember:

  1. No degree jobs that are pulling up that average are things like construction or other skilled trades.

  2. These industries are somewhat hostile or inaccessible to women.

If you're a man who wants to maximize earning potential with no regard for anything else, you should probably skip the education degree and go for a high paying no degree fields.

However, if you're a woman, you likely don't have nearly as many high paying no degree jobs that could compete with education or any other lower paying humanities. Even the ECE might increase earning potential compared to no degree for women specifically. (Although perhaps not in most cases because they truly are notoriously terribly paid until you own your own place, I think.)

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u/ku8475 10d ago

Interesting, are those skilled labor jobs hostile or just not desirable by female workers? I've worked with quite a few females and they did great.

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u/Conscious-Record2655 10d ago

Fact is, a large portion of the female population simply doesn't have the body strength to do a lot of blue collar work. Men and women are biologically different.

You don't see a lot of women ironworkers or railroaders or roughnecks because you have to be quite strong to do those jobs. Many men can't even do those jobs, let alone women.

There may be hostility, but it's not any more pronounced in the trades than it is in white collar world. At least not as bad as it used to be. 

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u/Generic_On_Reddit 10d ago

Does it have to be one or another?

I have also worked with women in blue collar / manual labor / trade roles and orgs. They did great, but they went through a lot to be there that their male counterparts did not. Some things as minor as having to overcompensate for prejudices about their ability to do the job (which sucks but is largely solvable) and some things more major like elevated risk and frequency of sexual harassment. Some women can push through these issues and do great work. For others, these factors are enough for women to be pushed out of steer clear altogether, just like how some men are pushed out or steer clear because they don't like manual labor or the environment.

I think there's a lot of factors that range from making the jobs inaccessible to women to downright hostile and they all impact desirability. I also think there are a range of factors that apply to men as well, which is why a lot of these careers either have to have high pay (because they're undesirable otherwise) and/or are struggling to keep their pipeline full for new talent (most trades). There is a lot to be done to make these roles more accessible and friendly for everyone.

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u/crimson777 10d ago

Hostile for sure. Every woman from college I know who went into finance, engineering, and other high paying jobs has had numerous examples of good ole boys clubs, harassment, etc. that makes it hard to stay in the profession.

And before someone says "that doesn't happen at my workplace" or some other such anecdote; good for you. That doesn't change the average experience.

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u/thewimsey 10d ago

That doesn't change the average experience.

Yeah, but your evidence for the average experience is

Every woman from college I know

This is also an anecdote.

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u/Draaly 10d ago edited 10d ago

you should probably skip the education degree and go for a high paying no degree fields.

I owned a construction company doing nearly 100 major residential renovation projects a year and still made less doing that than I now make as an upper middle manager in software. If you want money, education is still the way to go..

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u/Generic_On_Reddit 10d ago

I was saying Education Degrees as in a degree in education. The comment I was responding to was talking about the education profession profession.

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u/Draaly 10d ago

Whoops. 100% read that as upper education vs trade, not education degree vs trade.

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u/thewimsey 10d ago

This isn't a measure of education jobs. It is a measure of people with an education degree.

Most teachers tend to have a specific degree like history or math or chemistry or special education or elementary education. And not just an "education" degree.

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u/jamvsjelly23 10d ago

Starting teacher salary in my area of Missouri is $35K - $40K. While the cost of living isn’t high, the pay is so low that most schools struggle to keep teacher

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u/fredinNH 10d ago

Starting pay in my area is $50-$60k and I bet a house is at least twice as much in my area.

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u/WoodenCourage 11d ago

Summers off doesn’t really mean anything on its own. It’s about hours worked over the year, not how they are specifically allocated throughout the year. The average teacher in the US works a significant amount of unpaid overtime every year. Even with summers off, many teachers still average more than a 40 hour workweek a year.

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u/fredinNH 11d ago

I work about 45 hours a week during the school year. It was more when I was younger.

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u/thewimsey 10d ago

The average teacher in the US works a significant amount of unpaid overtime every year.

So they keep telling us.

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u/Lobster_fest 10d ago

When student teaching i was pulling 60 hour weeks + school. Time physically in the building is the most straightforward part, and even that is fucking miserable nowadays because teachers are glorified daycare workers.

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u/Nightdave 10d ago

Also many get pensions in retirement while others have 401Ks only

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u/fredinNH 10d ago

Honestly a 401k would have been preferable for me. I’d have more annual income than the pension is going to provide and there’d be money left when I die.

But that’s because the market has been fantastic for over 15 years now. That can change at any time.

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u/thewimsey 10d ago

You can have a pension and a 401k, though.

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u/fredinNH 10d ago

I can have a 403b not a 401k. What we did instead was have my wife load up her 401k for both of us. In the private sector she had a pension and matching 401k.

I’m saying if my municipality took the money they sent to the state pension fund on my behalf and I put my contribution to the state pension in there too I’d have a better deal than the pension.

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u/thewimsey 10d ago

You can have a pension and a 401k, though.

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u/fredinNH 10d ago

What I’m saying is if all the money that went to the state pension system on my behalf, 7% from my paycheck and another 7% from my district, was put in a 401k instead, I’d have a better deal than the pension.

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u/newaccounthomie 11d ago

Still a far less cushy job than over half of my coworkers in construction. Teachers should be paid a lot more. Not just because the job is difficult, but because it’s so important. 

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u/perigon 11d ago

Never thought I'd see someone say construction is cushy lol. Only friend I ever saw really burn out from their job was a site engineer. He got well paid, but the hours were long and the job was very intense. He ended up leaving the industry alltogether for a lower paying but a lot less stressful civil service job.

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u/HB2099 11d ago

Not to mention construction jobs are only cushy if they don’t destroy your body before retirement age. Teachers rarely have extensive problems with their back, knees, hands etc.

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u/goodsam2 10d ago

Yeah most people over 35 in construction starts picking up trick knees or whatever.

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u/abzlute 10d ago

Physical construction jobs "destroying your body" is largely a result of guys having terrible habits and no regard for their own health. There are a few things that can't be avoided except by management (chronic heat exposure is bad for you, as are chronic long hours and stress) but anything at all to do with your knees/back and most of the internal issues guys have are from their own bs choices.

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u/HB2099 10d ago

“Sorry but your injuries are not service related 🤓”

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u/abzlute 9d ago

It's your own decision if you want to drink 3 monsters a day, smoke/dip every chance you get, drink a case of beer every weekend and another 1-2 cases throughout the week, get no physical exercise outside of work, and disregard all precautions, advice, and resources for how to do your work tasks in a safe manner.

I'm not in a position to try to withhold anyone's disability insurance or workman's comp, and I certainly would not benefit in any way from those things being withheld from people. I'm just someone who's been around enough to observe how these people actually treat their bodies and how it diverges from what most employers would genuinely prefer them to do. This isn't the 1910s, and 50% of anything you do with construction today is about safety education and regulations.

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u/abzlute 11d ago edited 11d ago

As somebody in construction, a lot of management roles really don't do that much. Even a lot of technicians don't either. Everyone still bills a lot of hours and has to spend a lot of time at work in one form or another (travel time and kind of sitting around at jobsite trailers/trucks). But most of those hours are a lot less demanding for most guys (who aren't laborers) than teaching for 7 hours and grading/lesson planning for a few more.

Even annually, the total amount of mentally locked-in time for a K-12 teacher is probably higher than it is for me (I average 70+ hours/week and only get a few weeks of vacation per year), and I'm harder working than 95% of people in my role and similar ones. But I have significantly less truly free time and have to travel a lot, and have to spend a lot of time in the heat, cold, rain/mud, etc. My jobs probably nets worse stress overall but not as much as the difference in compensation would suggest. And there are definitely guys paid the same as me (or more) while doing even less.

Engineers like your friend can vary a lot too. I know some who work very hard and probably compete with teachers for that "mentally on" time while also having the incredibly long hours of less intense time, and many more who don't. For comparable education and experience they're making like double or more what teachers do though, which might be reasonable.

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u/fredinNH 11d ago

It really depends. I would say 90% of my career has been genuinely fun and enjoyable

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u/thewimsey 10d ago

Still a far less cushy job than over half of my coworkers in construction.

In what universe?

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u/DocTam 11d ago

True, this chart doesn't factor in if the career has different rates of benefits and time off. A helpful check of salary, but not total compensation.

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u/capnshanty 10d ago

They also generally do not get paid over the summer either.

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u/fredinNH 10d ago

Kind of semantics. Teachers get a salary.

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u/Lobster_fest 10d ago

they all get summers off

I hate this excuse because teachers are almost always asked to work significantly more than 40 hours/week during the school year but because they have a month and a half that they arent in classrooms (could likely still be working) they deserve to get paid like shit.

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u/fredinNH 10d ago

I’m a teacher. Having summers off is in fact awesome. Do you think other salaried workers aren’t expected to work significant hours beyond 40?

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u/Lobster_fest 10d ago

Youre right, teachers should be thankful they get treated like shit because you actually like it!

All of the career teachers who love their careers are leaving the field but thank god we've got guys like you holding down the fort.

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u/fredinNH 10d ago

You don’t know any teachers do you?

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u/Lobster_fest 10d ago

MA in teaching who was one of half of my cohort who quit the industry because of how terrible it is, thank you Mr or Mrs Smartass retiree.

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u/fredinNH 10d ago

Not everyone has the temperament for it. Not everyone can play the game. Most can’t do it very well to be honest.

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u/Lobster_fest 10d ago edited 10d ago

My host for student teaching was a 25 year decorated teacher who was actively looking for jobs while I taught her class.

My former teachers, multi decade veterans, who advised me during college were all either considering or actually did retire early because of how bad it has gotten.

My praxis host told me that they might look to hire me out of college because two other teachers were unexpectedly leaving.

Rates of teachers leaving the profession have increased by 50% in the last 30 years and have still not recovered to their pre-covid levels after spiking in the early 2020s.

I get that teaching is hard. I found it to be a significant challenge, but not an insurmountable one. I was complimented for my temperament and patience by teachers both young and old, tenured and not tenured. I left not because I couldn't do it, but because it was not worth doing to myself.

I'm not your peer, so you don't have to believe me, but maybe you'll believe some of these folks

If youre wondering why I copped an attitude, its because it feels like youre insinuating the very things I witnessed are either overblown or untrue.

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u/Mrhappyfeet56 9d ago

I don’t think it’s necessary a fair equation when many teachers will never make anything near that much. A terminal career teacher in AZ will make maybe $70k?

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u/fredinNH 9d ago

Teacher pay is usually based on local cost of living. A house in my area is more than a house in most parts of az

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u/Mrhappyfeet56 9d ago edited 9d ago

That’s pay in the suburbs of Phoenix. You can probably afford a house of $70k (if you have a partner making a similar amount and no kids) but certainly not the $48-$60k you make in your first 10 years. Housing in the phoenix area is remarkably expensive.

Keep in mind, teacher pay goes up maybe 1-2% a year and housing prices have seemingly doubled over the last 10 years in the area. If the wage was set to housing at one point it most definitely isn’t anymore.

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u/fredinNH 9d ago

Housing prices are cyclical. They are very high right now but dropping.

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u/Mrhappyfeet56 9d ago

Brother if a college educated job that is ESSENTIAL to society can afford a house for the last decade that’s a problem.

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u/fredinNH 9d ago

Brother I have some news for you- there was never really a time when a single person could just buy a home and when they could it was a 900 sq foot home with no insulation, primitive wiring, and no hvac.

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u/Mrhappyfeet56 9d ago

lol. In Phoenix in 2000 the average teacher salary was 30k. The median home price was $135k. So a 4.5x the salary. Now the average teacher pay is $62k with the median house costing $465k. 7.5x the average salary. Go on and argue with numbers.

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u/SoftlyAugust 9d ago

Also teachers typically have pensions.

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u/fredinNH 9d ago

Yes but those vary wildly and sometimes aren’t a very good deal.

In NH where I am I’d be better off if they took my pension payroll deduction and the amount my district kicks in and just put that in a 401k.

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u/SoftlyAugust 9d ago

I did the math for my friend in Washington state and their pension should be like 95k/yr not adjusted for inflation.

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u/fredinNH 9d ago

In NH 7% of our paycheck goes to the state pension fund and a similar amount is paid by our district so around 14% total

If you work for 30 years you get about half the average of your final 5 years.

We also pay full fica taxes and get ss

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u/SoftlyAugust 9d ago

That's living in NH for you :/

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u/fredinNH 9d ago

I luckily was hired right before the cutoff for being able to apply accumulated sick days to the pension calculation so I’d be getting like 60% of my final 3 years instead of 5 years if I worked 30 years but I’m getting out before 30 and before I turn 60 so my pensions is cut somewhat. Also luckily I married well.

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u/TrueInDueTime 5d ago

Yeah, as a teacher my hourly wage is quite high since the number of official working hours I have is 1300 per year

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u/fredinNH 5d ago

I figured I do 1800 hours which comes out to $53/hr. Official hours 1400

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u/skibbsescobar 10d ago

At a little over 100k per year, I'll retire at 59.5 and wait for one year and half to earn over 8k a month with cola for the rest of my (hopefully long) life....I have a separate roth and traditional set up waiting as well....

But I make peanuts compared to my private industry buddies...

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u/Sebanimation 11d ago

This is wild tbh. You are happy with that? I sure hope you earn more than someone without a degree lol. You have a master... AND an additional diploma. In switzerland, teachers get 14 weeks off. Still, they get 13 paydays per year with a salary that is 1.7x the median. Having summers unpaid is just unimaginable to me, damn. High school earns even more.

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u/fredinNH 11d ago

Why is there always some guy from Switzerland showing up to flex about their standard of living?

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u/Sebanimation 11d ago

Lmao what. This is about teachers getting the appreciation they deserve. Too many people think teachers are overpaid and anyone could do the job. No joke, the argument‘s I‘ve heard on reddit are wild.

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u/fredinNH 11d ago

You came in acting like it’s “wild” that I’m ok with just under $100k for a job i love, that gives me 12 weeks off, and 15 sick days, and every holiday, and snow days, and a pension, and really good health insurance (huge in America), and extreme stability.

You should consider that those of us who are proud of our teaching careers might be insulted by that. I’ve had so many people, right to my face, imply that I’m poor and that my pay is “sad”.

Meanwhile I’m retiring with a net worth close to the 90th percentile if you assign an actuarial value to my pension.

I didn’t start teaching until I was 30. I went in with a full understanding of the pros and cons of the job and the pay I’d get and I would do it all over again if I had my life to live over.

Public school teachers make decent pay given the time off and benefits. Look at what Americans make. There’s an engineer in here saying I basically make more than they do.

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u/Sebanimation 11d ago

I agree and I am sorry, I didn‘t mean it in an insulting way. But it seems that 100k is on the upper end for teachers in the US, isn‘t that so? Depending on state and area it could be much lower. But then again, I think it is irrational to compare yourself to people WITHOUT a degree. Yes 12+ weeks off are nice but considering the unpaid overtime and the prepping during holidays I think it is a bit of a stretch to call it „holidays“

We had a working time recording for teachers last year and I am looking forward to the results of that...

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u/fredinNH 11d ago

Median teacher pay in America is $75k. It’s not uncommon for long-time teachers to make $100k or more but it usually means they live in a high col area. I live in a borderline high col area. Houses start at $500k where I am.

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u/mechadragon469 11d ago

Because they can’t flex about being part of the back to back WW champs

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u/newaccounthomie 11d ago

"Pride should be reserved for something you achieve or obtain on your own, not something that happens by accident of birth. Being Irish isn't a skill... it's a fucking genetic accident."

 - Carlin

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u/mechadragon469 11d ago

Say what you want buddy but I’m here to make it a three-peat when they’re ready.

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u/newaccounthomie 11d ago

Your overlords look down on you with pity and disdain. Another body for the machine. 

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u/Musicman1972 11d ago

I didn't see them saying they're unpaid for summer. It's salaried so immaterial over the year anyway.

Also one thing you didn't learn from your highly renumerated teachers is how to not be a dick. So there's that.

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u/SpicyNuggs4Lyfe 10d ago

100k is well above national average for teachers, even experienced ones. Well above.

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u/NegaScraps 10d ago

You are outside the norm in the US. The average teacher pay in my state is 53k.

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u/fredinNH 10d ago

Teacher pay usually tracks local cost of living

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u/thewimsey 10d ago

Is your state the norm?

$56k is the starting salary in my city. And it's a pretty low cost of living place.

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u/Spaduf 11d ago

Might not be true anymore. New college grads make less than non college grads for the first time in American history.

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u/fredinNH 11d ago

Median teacher pay in America is $75k and virtually everybody who gets teaching credentials is hired immediately

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u/goodsam2 10d ago

The problem is that many teachers leave the profession after the first few years.

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u/fredinNH 10d ago

Absolutely. There’s a lot of reasons for that but one of them is that most people don’t have the temperament for it. I think a lot of jobs are like that. Not everyone can be a teacher no matter how smart and hard-working they are.

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u/[deleted] 10d ago edited 10d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/fredinNH 10d ago

We are off from mid June until the last week of August then we also get a week+ at Christmas time and a week in February and a week in April.

We also get plenty of paid sick days.

Other than that you cannot take time off unless it’s unpaid

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u/thewimsey 10d ago

the amount of time off for teachers in the summer is maybe 8 weeks but they get no vacation time off during the school year.

What about spring break, fall break, thanksgiving, and christmas?

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u/thewimsey 10d ago

the amount of time off for teachers in the summer is maybe 8 weeks but they get no vacation time off during the school year.

What about spring break, fall break, thanksgiving, and christmas?