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Title: Pennsylvania’s teachers are undercompensated—and new pension legislation will cut their compensation even more Undercompensation is likely a factor in Pennsylvania’s growing teacher shortage

Citation Type: Miscellaneous

Publication Year: 2018

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Abstract: Pennsylvania's teachers are undercompensated-and new pension legislation will cut their compensation even more Undercompensation is likely a factor in Pennsylvania's growing teacher shortage Report • By Jeffrey Keefe • February 15, 2018 • Washington, DC View this report at epi.org/138380 What this report finds: We find that Pennsylvania public school teachers are undercompensated relative to other full-time workers with similar education and skills. Their weekly wages are 12.1 percent lower than the wages of comparable full-time employees in Pennsylvania, and their weekly compensation (including both wages and benefits) is 6.8 percent lower. Further, we find that once new pension legislation goes into effect in 2019, the weekly compensation for new teachers will drop even lower, to 10.0 percent less than that of comparable workers. Why it matters: Pennsylvania is suffering from a severe teacher shortage. Research suggests a correlation between compensation and the ability to attract and retain teachers. If teacher compensation decreases even further in Pennsylvania, the teacher shortage will likely only grow worse. What can be done about it: Improving compensation could help mitigate the teacher shortage. But instead of working to improve compensation, Pennsylvania is doing the opposite: its state legislature passed laws reducing teacher pension benefits in 2010 and again in 2017 (the latter goes into effect in 2019). If we want to do something about the teacher shortage, the current trends in teacher compensation need to be reversed. Data from the Pennsylvania Department of Education show that, from 2013 to 2015, the number of students graduating from teacher-training programs plummeted by 63 percent. A growing teacher shortage in the state is disproportionately hurting low-income and high-minority schools-with those schools increasingly relying on uncertified teachers to fill open slots. At the same time, the state has been cutting pension benefits for public school teachers-a move that seems likely to make teaching jobs less attractive and exacerbate the current teacher shortage. Pension legislation passed in 2010 (Act 120) decreased pension benefits for teachers hired in 2011 and later, while a 2017 law (Act 5) will further cut pension benefits for teachers hired in 2019 (and beyond). In light of the Pennsylvania's most recent pension cuts and the challenges the state faces in attracting and retaining qualified teachers, we ask two primary questions in this study: How does teacher pay compare with the pay of other comparable workers in Pennsylvania-that is, are Pennsylvania public school teachers underpaid (which could help explain the teacher shortage) or overpaid (which might justify the pension cuts)? And how will teacher compensation change under Act 5 beginning in 2019? We further break down the compensation data to answer these questions: How does the teacher pay penalty vary by gender? And how does gender and racial/ethnic pay equity among teachers compare with pay equity among other workers? Finally, we examine whether union membership and collective bargaining has any effect on teacher compensation. 1

Url: https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED587802.pdf

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Authors: Keefe, Jeffrey

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Data Collections: IPUMS CPS

Topics: Education, Labor Force and Occupational Structure

Countries: United States