More than 40% of teachers now work a second job to make ends meet, AFT survey finds

More than 40% of teachers surveyed by the American Federation of Teachers say they are working a second job to make ends meet, according to a survey the union released this month.

The survey, conducted by the polling firm Grow Progress, gathered responses from 2,112 AFT K-12 members between August 13 and 24, 2026. Nearly two-thirds of respondents rated their weekly stress at 7 or higher on a 1-to-10 scale, and 31% said they are likely to leave teaching in the next year. Just 36% said they would recommend the job to their own children. The rate of teachers working a second job was higher among Black educators (58%) and Latino educators (42%) than white educators (39%).

“Teachers are at a breaking point,” said AFT President Randi Weingarten. “Many work more than one job to make ends meet, and they still dig into their pockets each year for basic classroom supplies, from books to art materials and even food for their students. They are battling education funding cuts, out-of-control Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, limitations on what they can say, much less teach, and an affordability crisis that’s making it even harder for working families to get by, let alone get ahead.”

Nearly half of respondents said they expect to spend up to $300 of their own money on classroom supplies this year, and a combined 76% expect to spend up to $600, a slight increase from last year, on items ranging from pencils to art supplies and instructional materials. School supply costs are up nearly 8% year over year, according to a study cited in the survey materials. Half of respondents said they expect to buy food for hungry students.

More than three-quarters of respondents, 77%, described the Trump administration’s impact on their work as negative, up from 71% a year earlier; the top concerns cited were funding cuts and pressure to privatize schools (35%), ICE activity that traumatizes students and families and depresses attendance (30%), and the broader cost-of-living squeeze (20%). More than 80% said gas prices, which the AFT’s survey materials cite as up nearly 40% since the war on Iran, have made their commute more expensive. Twenty-nine percent of respondents reported household income above $100,000, down from nearly 47% the year before, while 34% reported income between $50,000 and $99,000.

Respondents skewed toward veteran teachers: 56% were between 35 and 54 years old, and nearly a third were parents or guardians of children under 18. AFT reported a margin of error of plus or minus 1.79 percentage points at a 90% confidence level. Respondents were concentrated in a handful of states, with 21% from New York, 11% from Florida and 10% from Minnesota.

The union’s survey follows a separate teacher pay penalty report from the Economic Policy Institute and the Center for Economic and Policy Research. Economist Sylvia Allegretto found that public school teachers earned 25.2% less in weekly wages in 2025 than other college graduates with comparable experience and education, a gap that eased only slightly from a record 26.9% in 2024. Allegretto’s research found inflation-adjusted teacher wages have fallen 6.2% over the past three decades while wages for other college graduates rose 28.8% over the same period. Accounting for the value of benefits, which are typically better for teachers than for other professionals, Allegretto put the total compensation penalty at 14.5% in 2025.

The AFT counted a record 1.875 million members at its 89th biennial convention in July 2026, up nearly 60,000 over the prior two years.