Last updated on 2024-01-15
I regularly post analyses showing that South Dakota’s low wages, especially South Dakota’s bottom-of-the-barrel teacher wages, are not justified by any fantastical notions of lower cost of living.
KELO-TV adds to that analytical pile with number-crunching from MoneyGeek that shows that teachers in South Dakota’s two biggest towns receive well below the national average compensation for building young minds.
Average gross pay for K-12 teachers nationwide is $59,817. In Sioux Falls, average teacher pay is $47,096. In Rapid City, the average teacher pay is $47,498. Factor in taxes and cost of living (which we all know is higher in Rapid City, so enjoy that freedom, Black Hills Blue State Refugees!), and take-home pay is $41,776 for Sioux Falls teachers and $40,863 for Rapid City teachers.
Once again, even if you factor in higher taxes and a slightly higher cost of living, teachers will improve their purchasing power if they move from Sioux Falls or Rapid City to any big town in Minnesota:
Note those cost-of-living factors. Sioux Falls is the cheapest of these seven metros in which to live, but teachers can’t make the money necessary to enjoy that cheapness. The cost of living in the Twin Cities is only 3.8% higher than in Sioux Falls, but the average gross teacher pay in the Cities is 35.4% higher.
We can’t make good policy for teacher pay or broader labor issues if we labor in fiction. The idea that South Dakota’s lower cost of living makes up for South Dakota’s lower wages is complete fiction.
It’s not just in teaching. I found that out 22 years ago when we moved from Rapid to Madison, WI. The cost of living (primarily housing) is more expensive here, but you can make considerably more for the same job. And the benefits are better, too.
This is more proof the teachers unions in this state are totally useless.
I first realized this 30+ years ago when I moved to LA,CA for grad school. I was fully anticipating (based on the SD low living cost BS) being broke as heck in twice as expensive to live in LA. The mathematical truth was – I got paid twice as much for the same work/job and ended up with twice as much in my pocket every week after living expenses.
LCJ, your conclusion makes a certain kind of sense. A union is only as powerful as its members and its member’s tenacity to fight for their own well being. I think the more precise criticism is that SD teachers are too ambivalent about their situation — union or not. What good is having the tool to bring people together and facilitate change through collective power if it goes unused? Maybe even worse yet, what if teachers are relying on political actors to make things better? Those folks really are not looking out for the best interests of teachers, but teachers are voting school board members, state legislators and executives , and national legislators and executives into office.
Context: My job pays around 70K in SD, 120K in metro Denver and 130-150K on the West Coast.
I spent many years of my working life in South Dakota. Eventually I had to move to another state to earn more. I earned more wages but I also earned more benefits. If I had not left the state I would still be working rather than being retired. My children also left South Dakota to earn more elsewhere as did other family members. I may have to move from the state again because South Dakota is not a good place for seniors on fixed incomes.
Teacher pay is atrocious. Teacher aide (and other lower–tiered roles) pay is worse even when you take into consideration work load.
South Dakota is stuck in the fifties but South Dakotans are used to their relative poverty in comparison to the rest of the nation. Employees of state and local government entities are supposed to feel guilty, and unworthy of their wage, no matter how low it is. I always traced this to the over riding burden of Scandinavian, Protestant, lack of self esteem.
grudznick’s takeaway is that teachers, not factoring in the SILT at all, in South Dakota earn darn near as much as those in St. Cloud MN, and (if I had Mr. Zitterich writing this blogging for me this would be in the all capital letters) they don’t have to live in Minnesota!
+ 1 for “labor in fiction.”
Unions in red states tend to be useless to non-existent. Like the current guvs of iowa and Northern Mississippi.
Mr. LCJ, the unions of teachers run formerly by the Mr. Pogany fellow and maybe now that Mr. Paul fellow are indeed worthless. If they could educate their members on the value of the SILT and get them to buy into that, most teachers would get far more money.
Grudznick—if you were a teacher you’d be bitching all the time, running two or three small businesses on the side, and lecturing from 30 year old notes..unbearable to be around…which you probably are now.
grudznick can’t confirm or deny the complete accuracy of any portion of Mr. Blundt’s astute observation.
Arlo, you are telling us exactly what YOU would be doing and are projecting same onto others.
Get a grip.
Grudz, Lauren Paul does what he can for the teachers of S.D. but it’s people like you who keep us living in another century.
It’s not a union that teachers have, it’s an association that has no binding arbitration or power whatsoever. Teachers have the choice to join.
In most states where teachers’ associations have value, teachers are required to join, like California where they don’t even pay into Social Security.