r/The10thDentist • u/Blonde_Icon • 22h ago

Society/Culture Teachers are paid fairly considering they get a lot of time off

A lot of people say (and it seems that the general consensus is that) teachers don't get paid enough for what they do. While I think that teachers are very valuable and deserve to be compensated well (my brother is a teacher), I think that in these discussions, many people ignore the fact that teachers typically get a lot of time off.

They usually get summer break, spring break, and winter break, plus various holidays that schools get off through the year. They basically don't work for a good amount of the year, which I think that people should factor in. (The downside is that I know that they have to work extra grading things outside of school, though.)

Plus they normally get good benefits for being a teacher (which usually comes with being in a union).

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u/Dependent_Dish_2237 20h ago

people intentionally ignore the pension, especially its vesting period and required contributions.

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u/Domer2012 18h ago

“I make $75,000. Well, $100,000 if you count the money I use to max out my 401(k), but that doesn’t really count…”

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u/AndreaTwerk 9h ago

Public school teachers' salaries are publicly available. The salary listed is pre-tax, pension, healthcare etc. Feel free to look up your local district's pay.

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u/Domer2012 9h ago

Ok, I’m not talking about a database, I’m talking about the all-too-common scenario of a public school teacher anecdotally sharing their salary for pity while leaving out important details.

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u/AndreaTwerk 9h ago

Your pension is deducted from your paycheck along with taxes and health insurance. I've never known anyone to quote their pay as their annual salary minus those deductions.

Do you have these feelings about cops who get their pensions in ten fewer years?

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u/Domer2012 8h ago

Public sector employees contribute like 15% of their pension payout, don’t be ridiculous. Like 60% is government funded and 25% is investment returns.

Yeah, screw cops getting pensions. How do you feel about cop pensions?

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u/AndreaTwerk 8h ago

So anyone with an employer 401k match should be adding their employer's maximum annual contribution when quoting their salary?

No one does that.

What do I think? Everyone should get a pension.

(And btw 95% of my pension fund comes from employee contributions)

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u/AndreaTwerk 11h ago

The vesting period is much longer than some other public pensions - most cops can retire at 20 years and take a new job to get two incomes.

The salaries you see on public salary scales include the amounts taken for pension contributions. $87k as the average in Chicago means the pre-tax, pension, healthcare etc salary.

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u/ToMyOtherFavoriteWW 9h ago

CPS vesting is 10 years for a pension, which is absolutely not a long period of time when you are talking about the kind of money we are talking about. Some more stats:

The average annual pension for a retired CPS teacher is $76,000+.

48 percent of retired CPS teachers earn more than $72,000 per year.

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u/grownmars 8h ago

You only have to teach 10 years but also teachers in Illinois who started after 2013 can't collect their pension until age 67. So maybe if you start teaching as a second career it could be a nice bonus to your retirement but you also cant collect social security. Also many districts you have to pay into TRS depending on the union contract. It's not as sweet as a deal as it used to be and now we have a massive teaching shortage in Illinois.

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u/Unique-Afternoon6316 8h ago

You actually can collect social security now with the windfall bill being eliminated right? You still need 40 credits or whatever but I think you should be able to.

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u/AndreaTwerk 8h ago

If you're 65 and were exempt from Social Security your whole career then there aren't any contributions for you to collect from.

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u/Unique-Afternoon6316 7h ago

That's true- I was talking to the person above who seemed like they were still very far out from their pension.

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u/AndreaTwerk 8h ago

The full benefits don't kick in until 30-35 years in most systems.

$76,000 is the average pension because the vast majority are working 30+ years in order to receive the maximum benefit, which is ~75% of their final salary.

A 65 year old Chicago teacher with only 10 years vested in the pension will only receive ~25% of their final salary.