In the 2021–22 school year, the average salary for a K-12 teacher was $66,397. But after adjusting for differences in the cost of living across the country, patterns emerge about where teachers are more highly compensated.
A cost-of-living adjustment is a compensation increase or decrease based on the differing costs of goods and services across states. In other words, teachers in high-cost areas receive higher salaries to maintain their standard of living, while those in lower-cost areas may receive lower adjustments.
For this article, USAFacts applied each state’s 2022 regional price parity to the average teacher salary in each state to get a better comparison of teacher wages.
