Historical teacher salaries from 1800 till today

February 11, 2013 11:18 AM

I'm trying to track down the average US teacher salaries (at a national level) from the various US censuses, from the post-revolutionary period till today.

This information used to be available on the US Census website, but does not appear to be there any more. This is source data for an 8th grade school report (my son will be analyzing the data and creating a linear equation describing it).

posted by jenkinsEar to Work & Money (10 answers total)

Not to be glib, but this would be a great question to ask your local librarian. It would be a good lesson in library-use for your son too!
posted by Think_Long at 11:31 AM on February 11, 2013

Response by poster: Unfortunately, it's due tomorrow, so we're looking for an online source.
posted by jenkinsEar at 11:34 AM on February 11, 2013

You probably want the Bureau of Labor Statistics, actually: http://www.bls.gov/data/

(I'm still hunting, and will post a better source if I find it.)
posted by Made of Star Stuff at 12:02 PM on February 11, 2013

Here is a timeline on teaching in the US.

I'm shocked that this was assigned today and expected tomorrow. That doesn't give you much time to get your info.
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 12:05 PM on February 11, 2013

Response by poster: The teacher provided a URL for the data from US Census that appears to have gone bad in the intervening time.
posted by jenkinsEar at 12:09 PM on February 11, 2013

Could you give us the URL, anyway? It might help. (The format/content of the URL itself, I mean.) Or InternetArchive!
posted by Made of Star Stuff at 12:11 PM on February 11, 2013

I'm not sure where this falls on the "don't ask AskMe to do your homework for you" scale, but I was able to get statistics pretty close to what you're asking just by reviewing the top hits on Google for "average teacher salary 1800-present." That said finding exact data for such a long range of time is not a project to lightly attempt the night before it's due, given the laberinthine complexities of the census site. Finding the last couple years would be easy, going so far back is not.

Frankly the school should be teaching your son how to do this, otherwise what's the point of the project? And if it was really assigned today without the teacher giving the students a source and expected by tomorrow the teacher is being foolish. Are you sure the teacher didn't provide your son with some clearer direction on getting data?

I get that the teacher probably just wants the kid to get a data set, graph it, and make some comments about the graph but the simplistic nature of the assignment is paradoxically going to make it harder and less meaningful. Census and BLS statistics are broken down by the subject teachers teach, what grades they teach, what state, and other subcategories. Which should your son use? Should he average them all?
posted by Wretch729 at 12:13 PM on February 11, 2013 [1 favorite]

Aaand I should have read that last comment. I am now much more sympathetic to your son (if not to his teacher). The census website can be an endless maze, and they change stuff frequently.

Have you tried looking to see if there's a google cache of the link you got, or if putting it into the Wayback machine yields anything?

The BLS has current data on teacher pay under SOC code 25-2031 but I haven't figured out yet how to find historical data beyond a year or two. Will keep looking.


(Though honestly if the link is dead I bet many of his classmates will just give up and not do the assignment.)
posted by Wretch729 at 12:16 PM on February 11, 2013

Response by poster: I was able to find a spreadsheet that goes back to 1985; (I'm at work now and don't have the original URL from his assignment sheet handy). I'm going to ask him to chart that / derive the equation, and call it a day.

Thanks all!
posted by jenkinsEar at 12:22 PM on February 11, 2013

From Wretch729's comment, I did find this report from 1993: 120 Years of American Education: A Statistical Report -- Page 46 is where your data starts, though it's in non-adjusted dollars until 1919 -- and to cover the gap, you can use the National Center for Education Statistic's online tables.

I was interested in how to find this myself, and also figure that people looking for this data might come to the AskMe question (Lord knows I am always googling things and ending up on AskMe anyway).
posted by Made of Star Stuff at 12:27 PM on February 11, 2013 [1 favorite]