It’s called the “teacher pay penalty” in the Economic Policy Institute’s recent edition of its report on teacher pay in comparison to other college graduates.

While the national average almost hits 20%, here in North Carolina it is greater, so much that it puts NC 44th in the nation out of 51.

And, yes it does represent a “dip” from last year’s findings (for 2018).

The report makes mention of that and does have a notion of why that may be but reading the report might offer some more insight in the overall trends.

Remember, it was not long ago that Phil Berger and his office “praised” an NEA report that he cherry-picked data points from to declare:

His “claims” in that were debunked here.

Ironically, those claims by Berger do not even try to account for the fact that NC is #2 in the Southeast in teacher pay penalty.

Behind Virginia which has to contend with Washington, D.C., one of the most expensive places to live in the entire United States and home to many high-paying jobs.