The Pay of Chicago School Teachers and Selected Others

Wednesday, 12 September 2012 03:53

Since the Chicago school teachers went out on strike Monday, many political figures have tried to convince the public that their $70,000 average annual pay is excessive. This is peculiar, since many of the same people had been arguing that the families earning over $250,000, who would be subject to higher tax rates under President Obama's tax proposal, are actually part of the struggling middle class. They now want to convince us that a household with two Chicago public school teachers, who together earn less than 60 percent of President Obama's cutoff, have more money than they should.

Anyhow, if we want to assess whether someone is getting too much money, we always have to ask the follow-up question, compared to what? Here are a few comparisons that I have found useful.