Pension takes less than 8% of your gross salary. I am in the state retirement system. The employer puts in a similar amount. All my taxes, insurance, 401k and retirement added up to 33% of my gross salary. Your take home would still be about 67% of your gross. Not bad for a 9 month job. And before you start to say it's 12 months, you choose to get your check over 12 months or 9 months. Add in holidays. And you can get a job during the summer if you want to make extra money.
It's 9% for teachers (for now) and is likely to increase if legislators are to be believed.
My wife is a teacher.
Teachers get almost no Personal Leave Time to take off during the school year. (I started this year with 80 hours of PTO, and I've already earned an additional 8 hours- my wife gets 5 PTO days a year because of her tenure and her district, new teachers start off with 3 in her district).
So if one of our kids are sick, as bad as she wants to take them to the doctor or handle it - I have to do it. She can't. Last year my son got an award at the high school, she couldn't come. I went. That's really how ti works with teachers. They miss a lot - especially with their own kids.
When my kids were in elementary school, I ate lunch with each of them every 2 weeks on Fridays. In all the years of elementary school with our 3 kids, my wife never ate lunch with any of our children. She was working. I did it dozens and dozens of times.
I don't understand the "9 month job" talk. My wife works through the first week of June and she's required back to school the last week of July because she works at a magnet program. The Midlands area has numerous magnet programs and a bunch of teachers fulfilling those roles.
She's also "encouraged" (Read required) to take a class in the summer even though she's taken dozens of classes at this point in her career. Before COVID, one of the last classes she took in the summer required her to go out of town for a week. They didn't even cover her meals out of town or gas to get there. She had to pay those expenses herself. (How many of you have jobs where you are basically required to go take a class out of town and pay for your own meals while you are out of town? I know my company pays for that stuff).
Most of her fellow teachers are also "encouraged" to take a course or a variety of 1, 2, 3 week classes over the summer. (Mind you, these classes are not free- and some are not cheap- and no, the school doesn't usually pay for them) like most employers would do if you had a private sector job). I know about 3 years ago she went out of town for a week in the summer to the Lowcountry and got a tote as a "gift" for her week out of town. It was a nice tote. But a $40 tote is not much of a payment for a week out of town in the summer time doing work.
Last Tuesday, my wife left home before 7am - as usual, -worked her full day, had a tutoring session after school and then was required to stay for parent evening activity where parents come to school. She walked in at 8:30pm - exhausted. Now, that was unusual. That only happens about once a month. But even that sort of thing goes unnoticed by most parents.
Plus, does the "9 month job" talk include all the Friday evenings my wife and I are out to dinner where she is getting phone calls from parents or emails from students worried about something the previous week- some of them not "fun" phone calls? I don't think my wife and I have enjoyed a Friday night date night in years where she didn't get a phone call or a few "urgent" emails from parents or students about something that happened during the week.
Of course, she also gets some of these same emails on Sunday afternoons and evenings. Yeah, she could ignore them. But if she does, she'll pay for it during the week. So she answers them and tries to take care of the issue.
I have to be honest, I make over double what my wife makes, I never answer emails on the weekend (unless one of my coworker buddies is emailing me about something goofy and I just want to email back) and I am asleep when she leaves each morning. She works a LOT, LOT harder than I do and I don't have to deal with absolutely crazy parents and students.
Oh, I am not complaining too much. No, she didn't sign up for some of the garbage she has to do now. It's not in the job description. But she sure isn't working a "9 month job" either.
and I'll add- my wife has told me many times she is worried about teaching as a profession in South Carolina. The turnover is staggering. The numbers leaving the profession are huge and the numbers of incoming teachers can't keep up.
She has had a handful of super talented, young, wonderful teachers come through her school the last 3-4 years who have worked a year or two and quit. They aren't coming back. (I'm not talking about those quitting because of COVID, this problem was there before COVID) This has saddened her worse than anything because several of them have been top notch.
A lot of them are not coming back and aren't willing to work these easy, "9 month" jobs anymore. The "free market" is SCREAMING that the pay is not enough - not nearly enough. But the folks in Columbia in the legislature that live and die by the free market are sticking their fingers in their ears.
