Is Teaching an Engine of Upward Economic Mobility?

Findings from the 2025 State of the American Teacher Survey

Phoebe Rose Levine, Sy Doan, Elizabeth D. Steiner

ResearchPublished Jan 6, 2026

Teacher asking her students a question, students have their hands raised

Photo by WavebreakmediaMicro/Adobe Stock

Key Findings

  • We measure perceived economic mobility by asking teachers and similar working adults to report whether they feel better off financially than their parents were when they—the respondents—were in high school. We refer to this as being better off financially than their parents.
  • Forty-six percent of teachers said they are better off financially than their parents, compared with 61 percent of similar working adults.
  • About half of both groups—46 percent of teachers and 49 percent of similar working adults—were the first in their families to earn a bachelor's degree.
  • Black and Hispanic teachers were more likely than White teachers to say they are better off financially than their parents. Hispanic teachers were the only group more likely than their same-race working adult peers to report being better off financially than their parents.
  • Teachers with higher base pay were more likely than those with lower pay to feel better off financially than their parents, though the difference was modest.
  • At equal levels of base pay, similar working adults were more likely than teachers to say they are better off financially than their parents. This pattern suggests that factors beyond salary—such as benefits—shape teachers’ views of their financial status.

In theory, the public school teaching profession is an engine of upward economic mobility. It is public sector work, which is known for its fair pay, benefits, and job security; demand for qualified teachers is consistently high; and generous pensions are an attractive benefit. But whether teaching promotes upward mobility depends on where a teacher starts. For some educators, teaching could be a downwardly mobile profession because teachers earn less money, on average, than working adults with comparable educational attainment in other professions (Allegretto, 2024; Steiner et al., 2025).

The relatively low earning power of teaching combined with challenging working conditions can discourage prospective teachers, reducing interest in the profession (Kraft and Lyon, 2024; See et al., 2022). In addition, the cost of college tuition and student loans, pressure to support family members, and the opportunity costs of college and student teaching may make the price of entering the teaching profession too high for candidates from low-income backgrounds (Liu et al., 2000). Reducing the monetary and opportunity costs of entering teaching could help address teacher shortages and ensure that the teaching workforce is representative of students from a variety of economic backgrounds.

In this report, we use data from the 2025 State of the American Teacher Survey and American Life Panel companion survey to explore the extent to which public school teachers and similar working adults⁠[1] believe they have been upwardly economically mobile. To measure perceptions of upward economic mobility, we asked teachers and similar working adults to describe their financial status relative to that of their families’ financial status when the respondents were in high school⁠[2] (Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve Board, 2024). We compare respondents’ reports of relative financial status with their educational attainment and investigate relationships between relative financial status, pay, and benefits.

Understanding the extent to which teaching can be an engine for upward economic mobility, and for whom, could inform strategies to recruit teachers of diverse socioeconomic backgrounds and could position teaching as an economically attractive profession. Our findings offer valuable insights to district and state policymakers, teacher professional associations, and other groups involved in designing initiatives for teacher recruitment, retention, and the development of accessible pathways into teaching.

Comparable Shares of Teachers and Similar Working Adults Were First-Generation College Graduates

Teachers and similar working adults reported similar distributions of parental highest degree earned (see Figure 1). Forty-six percent of teachers and 49 percent of similar working adults said they were first-generation college graduates. We categorized respondents as first-generation college graduates if neither of their parents held a bachelor’s degree.

Having a parent who is a teacher makes it more likely for adults to become one (Bui and Miller, 2017). Twenty-four percent of teachers in our sample reported having a parent who is a teacher compared with about 10 percent of similarly educated adults who are not teachers (Davern et al., 2024).

Figure 1. Reported Parental Educational Attainment of Teachers and Similar Working Adults

Parents of similar working adults (n = 507)

  • Did not finish high school: 5%
  • High school diploma or GED: 22%
  • Some college but no degree: 9%
  • Certificate or technical degree: 3%
  • Associate’s degree: 7%
  • Bachelor’s degree (B.A., B.S., etc.): 26%
  • Master’s degree (M.A., M.A.T., M.B.A., M.Ed., M.S., etc.): 20%
  • Graduate or professional degree (Ph.D., Ed.D., M.D., LL.B., J.D., D.D.S.): 8%

Parents of teachers (n = 1,378)

  • Did not finish high school: 5%
  • High school diploma or GED: 23%
  • Some college but no degree: 9%
  • Certificate or technical degree: 4%
  • Associate’s degree: 8%
  • Bachelor’s degree (B.A., B.S., etc.): 22%
  • Master’s degree (M.A., M.A.T., M.B.A., M.Ed., M.S., etc.): 21%
  • Graduate or professional degree (Ph.D., Ed.D., M.D., LL.B., J.D., D.D.S.): 8%

NOTE: This figure shows the responses (in percentages) from teachers and similar working adults to the survey question, “Thinking about your parents or primary caregivers growing up, what was the highest level of education achieved by any parent or guardian?” Respondents could choose from the response options shown above or the response of “I don’t know,” which is not shown in this figure; 0.09 percent of teachers and 0.33 percent of similar working adults selected “I don’t know.”

Fewer Teachers Than Similar Working Adults Reported Feeling Better Off Financially Than Their Parents

Forty-six percent of teachers said they were better off financially than their parents, compared with 61 percent of similar working adults, a 15-percentage-point difference (Figure 2). A larger share of teachers (25 percent) than similar working adults (17 percent) said they were worse off financially than their parents. Because there were few differences between teachers’ and similar working adults’ reports of parental education (Figure 1), it is likely that these differences are related to the respondents’ own financial status rather than that of their parents.

Black teachers and Hispanic teachers were significantly more likely than White teachers to report being better off financially than their parents. However, fewer Black teachers reported feeling better off than their parents financially than Black similar working adults. Hispanic teachers were the only group of teachers who were more likely than their same-race similar working adult peers to report being better off financially than their parents.

Figure 2. Teachers’ and Similar Working Adults’ Reports of Financial Status Relative to Their Parents

Total

  • Worse off: Similar working adults: 17%, Teachers: 25%
  • About the same: Similar working adults: 22%, Teachers: 29%
  • Better off: Similar working adults: 61%, Teachers: 46%

White (ref.)

  • Worse off: Similar working adults: 21%, Teachers: 26%
  • About the same: Similar working adults: 20%, Teachers: 30%
  • Better off: Similar working adults: 59%, Teachers: 43%

Black or African American

  • Worse off: Similar working adults: 4%, Teachers: 19%*
  • About the same: Similar working adults: 18%, Teachers: 19%*
  • Better off: Similar working adults: 78%, Teachers: 62%*

Hispanic/Latino

  • Worse off: Similar working adults: 14%, Teachers: 21%
  • About the same: Similar working adults: 32%, Teachers: 20%*
  • Better off: Similar working adults: 54%, Teachers: 59%*

Male (reference group)

  • Worse off: Similar working adults: 18%, Teachers: 25%
  • About the same: Similar working adults: 21%, Teachers: 22%
  • Better off: Similar working adults: 61%, Teachers: 52%

Female

  • Worse off: Similar working adults: 18%, Teachers: 24%
  • About the same: Similar working adults: 21%, Teachers: 31%
  • Better off: Similar working adults: 61%, Teachers: 44%

NOTE: This figure shows the responses (percentages) from teachers and similar working adults to the survey question, “Think of your parents or primary guardians when you were in high school. Would you say you (and your family) are better, the same, or worse off financially than they were?” Teachers and similar working adults who responded “much better/worse off” or “somewhat better/worse off” were combined into a single category and are shown in the figure as “better off” or “worse off.” The teacher sample sizes are as follows: all, n = 1,378; White, n = 413; Black or African American, n = 384; Hispanic/Latino, n = 372; male, n = 308; female, n = 1,050. Similar working adult sample sizes are as follows: all, n = 507; White, n = 353; Black or African American, n = 38; Hispanic/Latino, n = 61; male, n = 247; female, n = 259. An asterisk (*) indicates that percentages for that teacher subgroup significantly differ at the p < 0.05 level from the reference group (ref.).

More Teachers Than Similar Working Adults Reported Holding a Higher Degree Than Their Parents

One measure of upward mobility is attaining a higher academic degree than one’s parents (Card, Domnisoru, and Taylor, 2022; Hout and DiPrete, 2006). Figure 3 indicates that this is the case, in an absolute sense, for teachers. Black teachers and Hispanic teachers were more likely than their White peers to report earning a higher academic degree and feeling financially better off than their parents. This difference is likely explained by parental educational attainment—56 percent and 70 percent of the parents of Black and Hispanic teachers had not attained a bachelor’s degree, respectively, compared with 46 percent of the parents of White teachers.

However, comparisons of same-race teachers and similar working adults suggest that teachers may have experienced better economic returns on degrees had they chosen a different profession (Newburger and Beckhusen, 2022). More teachers (67 percent) than similar working adults (60 percent) reported holding a higher academic degree than their parents despite teachers being less likely than similar working adults to feel financially better off. This pattern does not hold for Hispanic teachers, who were both more likely than their same-race peers to report holding a higher academic degree and feeling financially better off than their parents.

Figure 3. Highest Academic Degree of Teachers and Similar Working Adults Relative to Their Parents’ Highest Degree Earned

Total

  • Lower degree: Similar working adults: 13%, Teachers: 11%
  • Same degree: Similar working adults: 27%, Teachers: 22%
  • Higher degree: Similar working adults: 60%, Teachers: 67%

White (reference group)

  • Lower degree: Similar working adults: 14%, Teachers: 12%
  • Same degree: Similar working adults: 29%, Teachers: 24%
  • Higher degree: Similar working adults: 57%, Teachers: 64%

Black or African American

  • Lower degree: Similar working adults: 1%, Teachers: 6%*
  • Same degree: Similar working adults: 24%, Teachers: 20%
  • Higher degree: Similar working adults: 75%, Teachers: 74%*

Hispanic/Latino

  • Lower degree: Similar working adults: 4%, Teachers: 7%*
  • Same degree: Similar working adults: 23%, Teachers: 12%*
  • Higher degree: Similar working adults: 73%, Teachers: 82%*

Male (reference group)

  • Lower degree: Similar working adults: 14%, Teachers: 11%
  • Same degree: Similar working adults: 27%, Teachers: 21%
  • Higher degree: Similar working adults: 59%, Teachers: 68%

Female

  • Lower degree: Similar working adults: 11%, Teachers: 11%
  • Same degree: Similar working adults: 27%, Teachers: 23%
  • Higher degree: Similar working adults: 62%, Teachers: 66%

NOTE: This figure shows the responses in percentages. Teacher sample sizes are as follows: all, n = 1,373; White, n = 413; Black or African American, n = 381; Hispanic/Latino, n = 372; male, n = 308; female, n = 1,046. Similar working adult sample sizes are as follows: all, n = 505; White, n = 353; Black or African American, n = 38; Hispanic/Latino, n = 61; male, n = 246; female, n = 258. An asterisk (*) indicates that percentages for that teacher subgroup significantly differ at the p < 0.05 level from the reference group (ref.).

Factors Other Than Pay May Contribute to Teachers’ Worse Perceptions of Their Relative Financial Status

Teachers who reported earning higher pay were significantly more likely than those earning lower pay to report feeling better off financially than their parents. We found the same pattern for similar working adults. However, Figure 4 shows that even substantial differences in pay were associated with only a small change in the chance that teachers and similar working adults reported feeling better off financially than their parents.

Similar working adults had a higher probability than teachers of reporting being better off financially than their parents across all levels of pay. This suggests that non-pay factors may contribute to teachers’ worse perceptions of their relative financial status. Although we were not able to examine these relationships in our data, it is possible that such factors as teachers’ limited access to benefits beyond health care and retirement plans, unreimbursed spending on classroom supplies, higher average child care costs, or decreasing perceptions of occupational prestige could be contributing to their perceptions of their financial status (Darling-Hammond et al., 2023; Kraft and Lyon, 2024; Steiner, Woo, and Doan, 2024; Steiner, Woo, and Doan, 2025).

Higher pay was positively associated with feeling better off financially than their parents among teachers and similar working adults who were first-generation college graduates. However, the relationship was stronger for similar working adults. Teachers who were first-generation college graduates were approximately 6 percentage points more likely to report feeling better off financially than their parents if they were at the 75th percentile of teacher base pay ($89,000) instead of the 25th ($58,000). First-generation similar working adults earning $89,000 were 12 percentage points more likely to report feeling better off financially relative to their parents than their counterparts earning $58,000. It is possible that some non-salary factors that become more common among non-teaching professions as base pay increases, such as paid parental leave, paid personal time off,⁠[3] or occupational prestige, are especially important to these first-generation college graduates.

Figure 4. Likelihood of Teachers and Similar Working Adults Feeling Better Off Financially as a Function of Base Pay

First chart

This chart depicts "All teachers (n = 1,349)" represented by a solid blue line and "All similar working adults (n = 500)" represented by a dashed blue line. Both lines slope modestly upward from left to right as income increases from $40K to $120K. The dashed line (similar working adults) remains slightly higher than the solid line (teachers) across all income levels.

Second chart

This chart depicts "Teachers who are first-generation college graduates (n = 783)" with a solid red line and "Similar working adults who are first-generation college graduates (n = 240)" with a dashed red line. As in the first chart, both trend upward with income, but the dashed line for similar working adults remains slightly above the solid line for teachers throughout the range.

In both charts, the trend indicates that as income rises from $40K to $120K, values increase steadily for both groups, and teachers consistently have slightly lower values than similar working adults. Shaded regions around each line indicate confidence intervals for those estimates.

NOTE: This figure shows the likelihood that a respondent will select “somewhat better off” or “much better off” as a response to the survey question, “Think of your parents or primary guardians when you were in high school. Would you say you (and your family) are better, the same, or worse off financially than they were?" [as a function of respondent base pay]. Likelihood in this figure is estimated with a linear probability model, including a quadratic term (base pay and base pay squared) to allow for non-linearity. Sensitivity tests controlling for age, cost of living, and years of experience produced similar results. We display the margins for the 1st percentile ($40,000 per year) to 95th percentile ($120,000 per year) of teacher base pay amounts, which translate to the 9th and 65th percentiles of base pay for similar working adults. The y-axis shows the probability of feeling better off financially; the x-axis shows the base pay.

Teachers’ Perceptions of Relative Financial Status Were Linked to Perceived Adequacy of Benefits and Feelings of Burnout

Employer contributions to retirement or pension plans and paid health care premiums alone were not significantly related to whether teachers felt better off financially than their parents. However, as shown in Figure 5, teachers’ perceived adequacy of these benefits was related to their perceptions of relative financial status. Teachers who said that their retirement and health care benefits were inadequate were statistically significantly more likely to say that they felt worse off than their parents than were teachers who said such benefits were adequate.

Perceptions of benefit adequacy are also correlated with base pay, which may complicate the relationship between reports of adequate benefits and feeling better off financially. The relationship between perceived adequacy of retirement or pension benefits and feeling better off financially was no longer statistically significant after controlling for base pay. However, the relationships between inadequate health care and retirement or pension benefits and feeling worse off financially remained significant.

In addition, teachers who reported feelings of burnout⁠[4] were significantly less likely to say they felt better off financially than their parents compared with teachers who did not report symptoms of burnout. Although we were not able to explore possible explanations in our data, we hypothesize that teachers in this group could be working additional hours for extra pay, working multiple jobs, or spending substantial time on child care or other household duties (Steiner, Woo, and Doan, 2025). These are areas for future research.

Figure 5. Teachers’ Perceptions of Relative Financial Status by Access to and Perceived Adequacy of Retirement and Health Care Benefits

Health care

  • Yes (n = 1,052) (ref.)
    • Worse off: 26%
    • About the same: 29%
    • Better off: 45%
  • No (n = 326)
    • Worse off: 23%
    • About the same: 28%
    • Better off: 50%
  • Adequate (n = 653) (ref.)
    • Worse off: 21%
    • About the same: 30%
    • Better off: 48%
  • Inadequate (n = 399)
    • Worse off: 33%*
    • About the same: 27%
    • Better off: 40%

Retirement/pension

  • Yes (n = 921) (ref.)
    • Worse off: 25%
    • About the same: 30%
    • Better off: 45%
  • No (n = 457)
    • Worse off: 27%
    • About the same: 25%
    • Better off: 48%
  • Adequate (n = 680) (ref.)
    • Worse off: 21%
    • About the same: 31%
    • Better off: 48%
  • Inadequate (n = 241)
    • Worse off: 36%*
    • About the same: 28%
    • Better off: 36%*

NOTE: This figure shows teacher responses (in percentages) to the survey question, “Think of your parents or primary guardians when you were in high school. Would you say you (and your family) are better, the same, or worse off financially than they were?” Teachers who responded “much better/worse off” or “somewhat better/worse off” were combined into a single category and are shown in the figure as “better off” or “worse off.” An asterisk (*) indicates that percentages for that teacher subgroup significantly differ at the p < 0.05 level from the reference group (ref.).

Summary

Our results show that public school teaching is not, for most, a more upwardly mobile career than other professions that require similar educational attainment. Despite surpassing their parents’ education more often than similar working adults, teachers were less likely to report feeling better off financially than their parents. Specifically, Black and White teachers were less likely to report doing better financially than their parents when compared with their same-race similar working adult peers. Only Hispanic teachers reported feeling better off financially than their parents more often than their same-race similar working adult peers. These gaps highlight the poor return on investment of the teaching profession compared with other careers that require at least a bachelor’s degree.

The return on investment of higher education may matter less to many teachers than other aspects of the job, such as the social benefit or a desire to work with children (Bergey and Ranellucci, 2021). However, student debt and other costs associated with becoming a teacher are barriers, particularly for prospective teachers from lower-income backgrounds (Fiddiman, Campbell, and Partelow, 2019; Steiner et al., 2022). Policies that reduce the cost of becoming a teacher, such as debt forgiveness or paid training (e.g., through residency programs or payment for student teaching), could encourage prospective teachers with lower-income backgrounds to enter the profession.⁠[5]

We found in our prior research that an array of factors other than pay are related to teacher well-being, intention to leave a job, and work-life balance (Steiner, Woo, and Doan, 2025; Steiner, Woo, and Doan, 2024; Steiner, Woo, and Doan, 2023). Therefore, it is unsurprising that some factors other than pay—perceived adequacy of health care and retirement benefits and feelings of burnout are the factors that we were able to measure in this survey—are also related to teachers feeling financially better off than their parents. Together, our findings emphasize the need for targeted policies that address the financial and non-financial challenges that teachers face to improve the appeal and accessibility of teaching as a career.

Acknowledgments

We are extremely grateful to the educators who have agreed to participate in the panels and for helping us understand how to better support their hard work in schools. Their time and willingness to share their experiences were invaluable for this effort. We thank RAND colleagues Sarah Ohls and Brian Kim for serving as survey managers, Casey Hunter and Julie Newell for serving as data managers, and Julie Newell for programming the surveys. We thank Dorothy Seaman and Joshua Eagan for producing the sampling and weighting for these analyses. We also greatly appreciate the administrative support provided by Tina Petrossian and the American Educator Panels management provided by Lisa Wagner. We are grateful to colleagues at the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers for their support and collaboration. We thank Laura Rogers, George Zuo, and Benjamin Master for helpful feedback that greatly improved this report. We also thank Maria Vega for her editorial expertise, Monette Velasco for overseeing the publication process, and Haley Okuley for her design expertise.

Notes

  1. For the purposes of this analysis, we defined similar working adults as adults between the ages of 18 and 65 with a bachelor’s degree or higher who report working at least 35 hours per week (Allegretto, 2024) and who reported that they were not currently working as a K–12 teacher. Return to content ⤴
  2. In this report, hereafter, we use the phrase better off financially than their parents to describe responses to this survey question, i.e. the respondent’s perception of their current financial status compared to their family’s financial status when the respondent was in high school. At times, we also use the phrase relative financial status to describe this comparison.Return to content ⤴
  3. Similar working adult respondents who reported higher base pay were statistically significantly more likely to report access to retirement or pension contributions, paid parental leave, health care premium contributions, paid personal time off, child care assistance, and tuition reimbursement than those with lower base pay. Return to content ⤴
  4. Burnout refers to the percentage of teachers who “somewhat agree” or “strongly agree” to at least two of the following four statements: (1) “The stress and disappointments involved in [my job] aren’t really worth it,” (2) “I don’t seem to have as much enthusiasm now as I did when I began [my job],” (3) “I look forward to [my job] in the future,” and (4) “I am glad I selected [my job] as a career.” Items 3 and 4 were reverse-coded to match the directionality of items 1 and 2. Return to content ⤴
  5. College costs have risen in recent years: The sticker price of a college degree relative to average K–12 public school salaries increased from 10 percent in 1970 to 27 percent in 2022 (Kraft and Lyon, 2024). Return to content ⤴

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Document Details

  • Copyright: National Education Association
  • Publisher: RAND Corporation
  • Availability: Web-Only
  • Year: 2026
  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.7249/RRA4404-1
  • Document Number: RR-A4404-1

Citation

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Levine, Phoebe Rose, Sy Doan, and Elizabeth D. Steiner, Is Teaching an Engine of Upward Economic Mobility? Findings from the 2025 State of the American Teacher Survey. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2026. https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA4404-1.html.
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This work was sponsored by the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers and conducted in RAND Education, Employment, and Infrastructure.

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