Society has trained us to not talk about money and to view such an act as gauche. Unfortunately, this could prevent transparency and hinder fair compensation.
A recent study found that almost half, or 42 percent, of Arizona teachers who were hired in 2013 left the profession after three years.
One of which is Elisabeth Coate Milich an Arizona school teacher who decided to post her pay stub on social media, despite all the schooling that is required to become a teacher, she and her colleagues don’t make a living wage, according to Milich.
Milich’s Facebook post showed that she only received a $131 raise in a year as her salary went from $35,490 to $35,621, in a report by TODAY, however, the Facebook post was removed because of the negative feedback.
“I actually laughed when I saw the old salary versus the new one,” Milich wrote in her post. “I need a college degree to make this? I know I don’t make a lot of money, but then when I see it in black and white I’m like ‘wow!’ I mean, I love teaching, absolutely love it, but when you see what the salary is, you cannot live on it.”
Millich, who has been teaching for seven years, is a second-grade teacher at Whispering Wind Academy in Phoenix, Arizona, a state where there are some of the lowest-paid public school teachers in the country.
Their average salary is $47,218 compared to the national average of $58,353.
In addition, Milich says that teachers are often left to pay for supplies for students like markers and tape without being compensated. She’s also still paying off her student loans 20 years after graduating from college.
Milich says she was empowered to share her salary after she saw teachers in West Virginia strike last month.
Though Milich says she is fortunate to only have one teaching job because of her husband’s salary, she says some of her fellow teachers aren’t so lucky.
“My teacher friends that I work with, they work three and four jobs to make ends meet,” she said. “I know teachers that teach kindergarten all day long and then they leave and they go waitress at Applebee’s.”
“If you are a single person trying to make it on what we make, you couldn’t do it,” Milich said.
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Sources: Taphaps, Sharesplosion, Threepercenternation, Today