Comparing teacher salaries: Insights from the U.S. census

Teachers are more likely to be found in rural communities and low-wage metropolitan areas than are college-educated workers in other occupations. This analysis explores the extent to which the geographic distribution of teachers explains the relatively low average wage found in other studies. The analysis suggests that excluding geographic indicators from the analysis downwardly biases estimates of relative teacher wages. One important implication of these findings is that researchers should pay attention to geographic wage variations when making earnings comparisons between teaching and other occupations.