Title: Cost-of-living doesn't make up for Oklahoma's low teacher pay - Oklahoma Policy Institute
Headings: Cost-of-living doesn’t make up for Oklahoma’s low teacher pay
Cost-of-living doesn’t make up for Oklahoma’s low teacher pay
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Content: Cost-of-living doesn't make up for Oklahoma's low teacher pay - Oklahoma Policy Institute
Cost-of-living doesn’t make up for Oklahoma’s low teacher pay
Gene Perry // September 9, 2015 // Updated: May 2, 2019
OK Policy Blog // Education // Teacher Pay
Photo by BES Photos / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
Oklahoma’s teacher shortage has resulted in more than 1,000 teacher vacancies statewide this school year and and a huge spike in emergency certifications to get teachers in the classroom, even when they don’t have the required qualifications. Why is it so difficult to get enough qualified educators in the classroom? School administrators have pointed to Oklahoma’s very low teacher salaries compared to neighboring states. Whenever the issue is brought up, it’s usually not long before someone responds that our teacher pay doesn’t need to meet national averages because we have a low cost-of-living. That certainly helps, but we have to be more precise to understand whether the low cost-of-living makes up for our low salaries. Fortunately, the Missouri Economic Research and Information Center (MERIC) provides detailed numbers on how each state’s cost of living compares to the national average. MERIC, which is the research division for the Missouri Department of Economic Development, shows that Oklahoma’s ranking for cost-of-living is similar to our ranking for teacher pay. They show that in the most recent economic quarter (1st Quarter 2015), the cost-of-living in Oklahoma was third lowest in the nation, behind only Mississippi and Idaho. Combining estimates for groceries, housing, utilities, transportation, health, and miscellaneous expenses, Oklahoma’s cost-of-living was just 89.1 percent of the national average.