The West Virginia teacher strike highlighted a nationwide problem.
By
Alvin Chang@alv9nalvin@vox.com
Mar 16, 2018, 1:00pm EDT
After
we published our database showing the falling or stagnant pay of teachers, we
received hundreds of responses from teachers who detailed their experiences. And
one common topic that emerged was an underreported factor in the rise of teacher
discontent: Yes, their salaries have been stagnating, even declining, but that’s
been exacerbated by the increase in health insurance premiums.
Laurie,
a high school teacher in New Jersey, wrote to Vox, “Our salaries have gone up
less than 2 percent, but our contribution toward the pension and our health care
benefits have gone up, so our take-home pay has decreased every year.” Teachers
from Alaska to Wisconsin shared similar stories of skyrocketing health costs
that, combined with stagnant salaries, essentially gave them a pay cut over the
years.
Their
stories are part of a larger nationwide problem that was front and center in the
West Virginia strike that ended last week. Teachers walked out of schools for
nine days to protest not just stagnant salaries over recent years but health
insurance premiums that have risen dramatically over that time.
West
Virginia’s governor ultimately agreed to hold off on raising health insurance
premiums, along with giving teachers a 5 percent raise. (The governor was able
to meet the demand to keep premiums down because West Virginia’s teachers are
covered under a statewide plan, which isn’t the case for many states.)
But
teachers in other states are also dealing with this problem, contributing to
talk of teacher strikes in Oklahoma, Arizona, and Kentucky.
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