State Rankings
Teacher Salary by State (2026): Average Pay in All 50 States + D.C.
According to NCES F-33 instructional-salary expenditure and reported teacher FTE (FY2022), this ranks teacher salary by state.
- $127,962
- #1 top salary (District of Columbia)
- $82,166
- Mean across states
- $77,910
- Median across states
- 51
- States ranked
Teacher salary by state ranges from an estimated $55,703 to $127,962 in this FY2022 NCES F-33 comparison. District of Columbia ranks first among 51 jurisdictions; the unweighted state mean is $82,166.
- #1 of 51: District of Columbia
- $72,259 spread, top vs bottom
What This Ranking Tells Us
This state-by-state comparison estimates average instructional-staff pay from the same FY2022 NCES F-33 finance inputs for every jurisdiction. It is useful for comparing the dataset across states, but it is not an individual teacher contract, a starting-salary schedule, or a cost-of-living-adjusted measure.
By the Numbers: Teacher Salary by State (2026): Average Pay in All 50 States + D.C.
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. District of Columbia leads the list at $127,962, while Arkansas sits at the bottom with $55,703 - a $72,259 spread between the highest and lowest reporting state. The mean across states is $82,166 with a median of $77,910 (an unweighted average of each state's own average - not the same as the site-wide district-level enrollment-weighted average shown elsewhere), 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.
Top 10 States - Est. Avg. Salary
Teacher salary by state, estimated from NCES F-33 finance data, FY2022
- District of Columbia
District of Columbia
$127,962 Est. avg salary
- New York
New York
$125,882 Est. avg salary
- California
California
$123,951 Est. avg salary
- Washington
Washington
$117,433 Est. avg salary
- Connecticut
Connecticut
$106,216 Est. avg salary
- Massachusetts
Massachusetts
$105,323 Est. avg salary
- Alaska
Alaska
$104,540 Est. avg salary
- Minnesota
Minnesota
$103,100 Est. avg salary
- Maryland
Maryland
$101,110 Est. avg salary
- Ohio
Ohio
$96,303 Est. avg salary
What this shows This view ranks all states and D.C. by the same FY2022 instructional-salary and teacher-FTE methodology; it does not adjust for cost of living or benefits.
Nominal salary versus purchasing power
Each point is one state or D.C. The horizontal value is the FY2022 NCES-derived salary estimate used in this ranking; the vertical value adjusts that same estimate with BEA's FY2022 all-items Regional Price Parity. Points above the horizontal midpoint retain more purchasing power than their nominal position alone suggests. This is not a tax, benefits, housing-budget, or individual-offer comparison.
State teacher-salary estimates before and after the same-year BEA price-level adjustment
Source: NCES CCD F-33 instructional-salary expenditure and teacher FTE, FY2022; BEA Regional Price Parities, all-items, 2022. Read the method and download the state comparison.
Reuse this state comparison
Download the same FY2022 state summary in CSV or JSON, or embed the top-ten panel. The embed preserves a visible PlainTeacher and NCES attribution; the release covers this derived state summary only.
The top 3
| # | State | Est. Avg. Salary |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | District of Columbia DC | $127,962 |
| 2 | New York NY | $125,882 |
| 3 | California CA | $123,951 |
| 4 | Washington WA | $117,433 |
| 5 | Connecticut CT | $106,216 |
| 6 | Massachusetts MA | $105,323 |
| 7 | Alaska AK | $104,540 |
| 8 | Minnesota MN | $103,100 |
| 9 | Maryland MD | $101,110 |
| 10 | Ohio OH | $96,303 |
| 11 | Rhode Island RI | $96,093 |
| 12 | New Jersey NJ | $90,256 |
| 13 | Hawaii HI | $89,313 |
| 14 | Vermont VT | $88,832 |
| 15 | Oregon OR | $88,731 |
| 16 | Delaware DE | $87,434 |
| 17 | Illinois IL | $86,298 |
| 18 | New Hampshire NH | $85,585 |
| 19 | Wyoming WY | $84,775 |
| 20 | Pennsylvania PA | $84,555 |
| 21 | Virginia VA | $84,524 |
| 22 | Utah UT | $83,296 |
| 23 | Colorado CO | $80,177 |
| 24 | Louisiana LA | $80,129 |
| 25 | Alabama AL | $78,398 |
| 26 | Iowa IA | $77,910 |
| 27 | Nebraska NE | $77,862 |
| 28 | North Dakota ND | $77,606 |
| 29 | Maine ME | $76,891 |
| 30 | North Carolina NC | $76,187 |
| 31 | Georgia GA | $75,303 |
| 32 | Texas TX | $74,920 |
| 33 | Michigan MI | $74,751 |
| 34 | Montana MT | $73,667 |
| 35 | New Mexico NM | $72,485 |
| 36 | Wisconsin WI | $71,287 |
| 37 | Kentucky KY | $70,418 |
| 38 | Tennessee TN | $68,524 |
| 39 | Arizona AZ | $68,265 |
| 40 | Idaho ID | $67,352 |
| 41 | Kansas KS | $66,655 |
| 42 | Indiana IN | $65,729 |
| 43 | South Carolina SC | $64,959 |
| 44 | Nevada NV | $64,175 |
| 45 | Florida FL | $64,083 |
| 46 | South Dakota SD | $63,995 |
| 47 | West Virginia WV | $62,740 |
| 48 | Missouri MO | $62,482 |
| 49 | Oklahoma OK | $58,364 |
| 50 | Mississippi MS | $57,919 |
| 51 | Arkansas AR | $55,703 |
Source: National Center for Education Statistics, Common Core of Data (CCD) F-33 Survey.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which state has the highest estimated teacher salary?
The first row shows the highest state in this FY2022 comparison. The estimate divides instructional-salary expenditure by reported teacher FTE, so it compares the dataset consistently but is not a published contract pay scale.
What does this teacher salary by state list measure?
It measures an estimated average instructional-staff salary for each state, derived from NCES F-33 instructional-salary expenditure and reported teacher FTE. It does not measure benefits, tenure, subject area, or a particular district salary schedule.
Is teacher pay adjusted for cost of living?
No. These are nominal-dollar estimates. A higher figure does not automatically mean greater purchasing power because housing, taxes, benefits, and local costs vary across states.
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Read our methodology - how this data is sourced, computed, and verified.
Related
According to the NCES Common Core of Data (CCD) F-33 Local Education Agency Finance Survey, PlainTeacher's figures are computed directly, no number is typed in by an editor. This ranking is computed directly from each district's FY2022 F-33 submission, no figure is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error on this page. Data current as of FY2022.
| Publisher | PlainTeacher |
| Sources | Public official public datasets |