States with the Lowest Average Teacher Salary

By the Numbers: States with the Lowest Average Teacher Salary

This ranking covers 51 jurisdictions (all 50 states plus the District of Columbia) using estimated average teacher salary from the NCES Common Core of Data F-33 Local Education Agency Finance Survey, FY2022. Florida leads the list at $54,048, while District of Columbia sits at the bottom with $162,479 - a $108,431 spread between the highest and lowest reporting state. The national mean is $85,262 with a median of $77,946, a gap that reveals how concentrated the top of the distribution is.

Teacher-pay rankings are shaped by state funding formulas, collective bargaining density, cost-of-living adjustments, and statutory minimum salary schedules. States with strong unions and high property-tax bases tend to cluster at the top; Right-to-Work states with lean state education budgets tend to cluster at the bottom. Licensing reciprocity between neighboring states also drives compensation pressure - educators cross borders for pay differentials.

The F-33 survey covers all public Local Education Agencies (LEAs) reporting to NCES, capturing total instructional salary expenditure (variable Z33), enrollment, per-pupil spending, and revenue by source. Estimated teacher salary figures are derived by dividing Z33 by teacher FTE - these are district-level aggregates, not individual contracts. Private schools, charter networks with separate reporting, and federal BIE schools sit outside this dataset. Year-over-year comparisons require caution: district consolidations, reporting methodology changes, and late filings can shift rankings by several positions without reflecting underlying policy change. Click any state below to see per-district salary breakdowns and state-level licensing context.