Increasing Pennsylvania minimum teacher salary would change educator lives.

Over the past 30 years, the cost of living has risen, college tuition has soared, and the education profession has changed dramatically. Yet Pennsylvania’s minimum teacher salary has remained at $18,500 per year, well below what other similarly educated professionals earn. We applauded Gov. Wolf for supporting a plan to pay talented young teachers what they are worth. His proposal would increase the minimum annual salary from $18,500 to $45,000.

Sen. Judy Schwank and Reps. Tarah Toohil and Kyle Mullins have introduced legislation to set the minimum professional educator salary at $45,000. Passing these bills will make a big difference in the lives of more than 3,100 educators who will make less than $45,000 a year next year.

Let your state legislators know how important it is to support this Minimum Teacher Salary legislation.

Here's what you need to know

• Thousands of hardworking teachers in Pennsylvania are paid much less than other college-educated professionals in the state. Three out of four of them are women.

• They are struggling to pay student loans, support their families, and care for loved ones. • The job of teaching has changed a lot over the past 30 years, making the profession more challenging and requiring educators to do more.

• Right now, there is a growing teacher shortage in Pennsylvania, and low wages are one of the factors contributing to it.

• If we don’t pay these professionals what they are worth, it will begin to take a toll on student success.

• Gov. Wolf has proposed increasing the state’s minimum teacher salary to $45,000.

• We can do this without adding anything to local school district budgets. It will only require an increase of ¼ of 1 percent to the state’s basic education funding — less than half a penny on the dollar.

• Right now, a single Pennsylvania teacher earning $41,738 (the average salary of teachers earning less than $45,000) with a preschool child and a school-aged child 2 would need to earn $62,2221 to pay all components of the “self-sufficiency standard,” their required pension contributions of 7.5 percent of salary, and an average Pennsylvania student loan. The “self-sufficiency standard” represents the amount of income necessary to meet basic family needs — a bare minimum, no-frills family budget with no debt payments, no Christmas gifts, no school supply purchases, no dining out, no moving costs, and no savings of any type.2

• It’s time to raise the state’s minimum teacher salary and pay teachers what they are worth

Let’s get this done.

Increasing Pennsylvania’s minimum teacher salary is absolutely crucial. No PSEA member should need to struggle to make ends meet.

Let your legislators know that you support Sen. Judy Schwank and Reps. Tarah Toohil and Kyle Mullins AND Gov. Wolf’s minimum teacher salary plan. And let’s get this done.