Teacher Salary Statistics 2026
Elementary school teachers in the United States earn a national median wage of $63,970 a year. Across the 12 K-12 teaching occupations the median is $65,075, running from $38,140 (preschool teachers, except special education) up to $76,580 (special education teachers, all other).
Wage estimates: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025. OEWS reports annual wages for teachers on the basis of the work schedule they are paid for, which for most school teachers is shorter than a full year. Group medians and counts are PayCrunch calculations.
Pay for teaching occupations in the United States, from the 64 educational instruction and library occupations in the BLS OEWS release of May 2025. K-12 classroom teachers and postsecondary teachers are reported separately below because their pay structures differ.
Key statistics
Each line is one figure with its source. Quote any of them directly; the citation format is at the foot of the page.
- Elementary school teachers, except special education, earn a national median wage of $63,970 a year.Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, OEWS May 2025.
- Secondary school teachers, except special and career/technical education, earn a national median of $72,040 a year.Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, OEWS May 2025.
- Middle school teachers, except special and career/technical education, earn a national median of $64,370 a year.Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, OEWS May 2025.
- Preschool teachers, except special education, earn a national median of $38,140 a year, the lowest of the 12 K-12 teaching occupations.Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, OEWS May 2025.
- The median of the 12 K-12 teaching occupation medians is $65,075 a year.Source: PayCrunch calculation from U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, OEWS May 2025.
- The median of the 37 postsecondary teaching occupation medians is $84,290 a year.Source: PayCrunch calculation from U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, OEWS May 2025.
- 7 of the 37 postsecondary teaching occupations have a national median of $100,000 or more; none of the 12 K-12 occupations does.Source: PayCrunch calculation from U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, OEWS May 2025.
- The highest-paid teaching occupation in the release is law teachers, postsecondary, at a national median of $128,500 a year.Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, OEWS May 2025.
- The best-paying state for elementary school teachers is New York, where the 90th-percentile wage is $136,260 and the state median is $85,760.Source: PayCrunch calculation from U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, OEWS May 2025.
- Elementary teacher pay at the 10th percentile is $47,960 a year and at the 90th percentile $104,340.Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, OEWS May 2025.
- 11 of the 12 K-12 teaching occupations pay above the median of all 824 occupational medians, $61,340.Source: PayCrunch calculation from U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, OEWS May 2025.
K-12 classroom teachers
OEWS reports 12 occupations in the K-12 teaching group, SOC 25-2. Their medians run from $38,140 (preschool teachers, except special education) up to $76,580 (special education teachers, all other). Elementary school teachers, the largest single classification, have a median of $63,970; secondary school teachers $72,040; middle school teachers $64,370. The median of the 12 K-12 medians is $65,075, against $61,340 for all 824 occupations in the release.
| Occupation▲ | SOC▲ | Entry (10th pct)▲ | Median▲ | Top of range (90th pct)▲ | Best-paying state▲ | 90th pct there▲ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Special Education Teachers, All Other | 25-2059 | $48,440 | $76,580 | $120,080 | Oregon | $136,490 |
| Special Education Teachers, Secondary School | 25-2058 | $49,800 | $74,260 | $109,100 | New York | $134,460 |
| Secondary School Teachers, Except Special and Career/Technical Education | 25-2031 | $48,780 | $72,040 | $107,600 | New York | $136,450 |
| Special Education Teachers, Middle School | 25-2057 | $49,420 | $66,810 | $102,510 | New York | $132,490 |
| Career/Technical Education Teachers, Secondary School | 25-2032 | $50,040 | $66,270 | $101,340 | Illinois | $132,830 |
| Special Education Teachers, Kindergarten and Elementary School | 25-2052 | $49,350 | $65,120 | $103,010 | New York | $133,280 |
| Career/Technical Education Teachers, Middle School | 25-2023 | $49,200 | $65,030 | $101,890 | New York | $135,400 |
| Special Education Teachers, Preschool | 25-2051 | $45,620 | $64,830 | $130,040 | New York | $170,200 |
| Middle School Teachers, Except Special and Career/Technical Education | 25-2022 | $48,080 | $64,370 | $102,540 | New York | $137,370 |
| Elementary School Teachers, Except Special Education | 25-2021 | $47,960 | $63,970 | $104,340 | New York | $136,260 |
| Kindergarten Teachers, Except Special Education | 25-2012 | $46,990 | $62,680 | $101,830 | New York | $137,710 |
| Preschool Teachers, Except Special Education | 25-2011 | $28,990 | $38,140 | $61,390 | District of Columbia | $108,270 |
National figures, BLS OEWS May 2025. Best-paying state uses the 500-employee floor.
Postsecondary teaching
The postsecondary group, SOC 25-1, is much larger: 37 occupations, one per subject area, with a median of medians of $84,290. 7 pay a median of $100,000 or more. The highest is law teachers, postsecondary at $128,500 and the lowest career/technical education teachers, postsecondary at $63,820. Every one of the 37 postsecondary occupations has a median above the all-occupation median of $61,340.
| Occupation▲ | SOC▲ | Entry (10th pct)▲ | Median▲ | Top of range (90th pct)▲ | Best-paying state▲ | 90th pct there▲ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Law Teachers, Postsecondary | 25-1112 | $64,250 | $128,500 | $287,900 | New York | $326,080 |
| Economics Teachers, Postsecondary | 25-1063 | $64,060 | $123,920 | $224,200 | Massachusetts | $346,200 |
| Engineering Teachers, Postsecondary | 25-1032 | $61,550 | $109,270 | $210,370 | California | $294,260 |
| Health Specialties Teachers, Postsecondary | 25-1071 | $59,270 | $107,310 | $322,020 | Arkansas | $394,880 |
| Atmospheric, Earth, Marine, and Space Sciences Teachers, Postsecondary | 25-1051 | $59,700 | $103,170 | $203,190 | California | $260,890 |
| Forestry and Conservation Science Teachers, Postsecondary | 25-1043 | $50,100 | $101,420 | $148,920 | national figure | $148,920 |
| Physics Teachers, Postsecondary | 25-1054 | $60,200 | $100,310 | $177,850 | California | $292,150 |
| Anthropology and Archeology Teachers, Postsecondary | 25-1061 | $57,840 | $99,650 | $171,310 | California | $213,200 |
| Business Teachers, Postsecondary | 25-1011 | $47,180 | $99,080 | $209,470 | New Hampshire | $350,260 |
| Agricultural Sciences Teachers, Postsecondary | 25-1041 | $50,870 | $98,700 | $163,150 | Texas | $169,420 |
| Political Science Teachers, Postsecondary | 25-1065 | $56,450 | $98,070 | $174,660 | Massachusetts | $219,420 |
| Geography Teachers, Postsecondary | 25-1064 | $52,550 | $97,590 | $165,460 | national figure | $165,460 |
| Computer Science Teachers, Postsecondary | 25-1021 | $49,460 | $96,980 | $170,200 | California | $225,640 |
| Architecture Teachers, Postsecondary | 25-1031 | $58,430 | $96,870 | $159,030 | California | $178,950 |
| Environmental Science Teachers, Postsecondary | 25-1053 | $57,780 | $94,980 | $164,190 | New York | $174,100 |
| Chemistry Teachers, Postsecondary | 25-1052 | $57,870 | $93,250 | $172,110 | California | $278,510 |
| Area, Ethnic, and Cultural Studies Teachers, Postsecondary | 25-1062 | $52,070 | $85,020 | $160,420 | New York | $203,590 |
| Biological Science Teachers, Postsecondary | 25-1042 | $52,150 | $84,620 | $169,900 | Massachusetts | $296,440 |
| Sociology Teachers, Postsecondary | 25-1067 | $49,930 | $84,290 | $160,140 | California | $233,850 |
| History Teachers, Postsecondary | 25-1125 | $48,410 | $83,820 | $162,160 | California | $217,700 |
| Library Science Teachers, Postsecondary | 25-1082 | $57,200 | $80,340 | $129,120 | national figure | $129,120 |
| Psychology Teachers, Postsecondary | 25-1066 | $49,050 | $80,340 | $153,600 | Maryland | $207,700 |
| Philosophy and Religion Teachers, Postsecondary | 25-1126 | $49,140 | $80,260 | $139,580 | New Jersey | $213,590 |
| Nursing Instructors and Teachers, Postsecondary | 25-1072 | $48,800 | $80,250 | $129,500 | California | $164,450 |
| Mathematical Science Teachers, Postsecondary | 25-1022 | $49,180 | $79,940 | $139,340 | California | $226,560 |
| Foreign Language and Literature Teachers, Postsecondary | 25-1124 | $49,060 | $79,350 | $136,050 | New York | $208,840 |
| English Language and Literature Teachers, Postsecondary | 25-1123 | $48,270 | $78,760 | $137,250 | California | $216,190 |
| Art, Drama, and Music Teachers, Postsecondary | 25-1121 | $47,570 | $78,620 | $163,350 | New York | $272,120 |
| Communications Teachers, Postsecondary | 25-1122 | $47,590 | $78,580 | $143,720 | California | $218,880 |
| Postsecondary Teachers, All Other | 25-1199 | $44,300 | $77,640 | $160,700 | Massachusetts | $208,240 |
| Social Work Teachers, Postsecondary | 25-1113 | $48,200 | $77,570 | $126,790 | Michigan | $136,990 |
| Recreation and Fitness Studies Teachers, Postsecondary | 25-1193 | $44,900 | $77,270 | $134,890 | California | $210,140 |
| Criminal Justice and Law Enforcement Teachers, Postsecondary | 25-1111 | $45,000 | $76,590 | $140,240 | California | $259,890 |
| Family and Consumer Sciences Teachers, Postsecondary | 25-1192 | $47,830 | $75,870 | $130,790 | national figure | $130,790 |
| Education Teachers, Postsecondary | 25-1081 | $39,530 | $75,350 | $126,860 | New York | $168,280 |
| Social Sciences Teachers, Postsecondary, All Other | 25-1069 | $40,670 | $72,990 | $164,420 | California | $219,230 |
| Career/Technical Education Teachers, Postsecondary | 25-1194 | $41,960 | $63,820 | $108,620 | New Mexico | $177,330 |
National figures, BLS OEWS May 2025. Click a column to re-sort; type to filter by subject.
Where teacher pay reaches highest
For elementary school teachers the best-paying state is New York, where the 90th-percentile wage is $136,260 and OEWS reports 101,410 elementary teachers employed; the state median is $85,760. For secondary school teachers it is New York at $136,450. State figures on this page use the PayCrunch 500-employee floor, which matters less for teaching than for most fields because teachers are employed in large numbers in every state.
How to cite this page
Ready to paste:
PayCrunch (2026). Teacher Salary Statistics 2026. Aggregated from U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025. https://paycrunch.co/stats/teacher-salary-statistics.html (accessed 31 August 2026).
For a single figure, name the occupation and the release — for example: “registered nurses earned a median of $97,550 a year (BLS, OEWS May 2025, via PayCrunch)”. Please credit the Bureau of Labor Statistics as well as PayCrunch: the wage estimates are theirs, and the aggregation is ours. Figures on this page were last recomputed on 31 August 2026 from the May 2025 release.
Method
Source
Every wage figure on this page comes from the Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics release of May 2025, published by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. No figure here is a PayCrunch estimate. What PayCrunch contributes is the aggregation: the counts, medians, means and rankings across occupations are computed from that release and are labelled as PayCrunch calculations wherever they appear.
What the three figures mean
Entry is the annual 10th percentile wage for the occupation nationally. Median is the 50th percentile. Top of range is the annual 90th percentile — the wage level below which 90 percent of the estimated wage distribution for that occupation falls. None of the three is a ceiling, a promise, or a statement about any individual.
The state figures
Where a state is named as best-paying, it is the state with the highest annual 90th-percentile wage among states that OEWS reports employing at least 500 people in that occupation. That employment floor is PayCrunch's rule, not the BLS's; it exists because unfiltered state estimates are frequently drawn from very small samples. The best-paying states dataset documents the floor in full and publishes the unfiltered answer alongside the filtered one for every occupation.
Rebuilding these numbers
The script that computes every figure on this page is .github/stats-engine/build_stats.py in the PayCrunch repository. It reads two files, /data/open/best-paying-states.json and the occupation page dataset, and regenerates all eight statistics pages. Nothing on this page is typed by hand.
Limitations
- OEWS is a survey. Every figure carries sampling error, and the error is largest where the occupation is smallest. BLS publishes relative standard errors alongside the estimates.
- These are occupational aggregates, not worker aggregates. Statistics here summarise the 824 occupation-level estimates, giving each occupation equal weight. They are not employment-weighted, so they do not describe the average American worker and should not be quoted as if they did.
- The 90th percentile is not a maximum. It is a point on a wage distribution. Pay above it exists.
- No cost-of-living adjustment. All figures are nominal annual wages.
- Wage and salary employment only. OEWS excludes the self-employed, so occupations with many independent workers are under-covered.
- SOC titles are classification labels, not job titles as employers use them, and one SOC code can cover several distinct jobs.
- One release only. These are May 2025 figures; OEWS releases are not straightforwardly comparable across years.
Frequently asked questions
Pay for individual occupations
PayCrunch pages for teaching occupations, each with its BLS entry, median and top-of-range figures and the best-paying state.
The full dataset behind these figures is on the best-paying states page, and every occupation is queryable through the PayCrunch API. All occupation pages →