Substitute Teachers, Short-Term
What the pay figures show
- Alaska comes first for substitute teachers, short-term on every measure. $66,920 on paper. Still first after tax. Still first at $54,966 once you adjust for what things cost. When the headline and the reality agree, say so plainly.
- For substitute teachers, short-term, Alaska's $66,920 median is the highest nominally, after tax, and after regional price adjustment, at $54,966. Concordance across all three measures is uncommon and worth stating explicitly, because the absence of a reordering is itself the finding for this occupation.
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Pay by state · May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
National median
$41,670
People doing it
524,770
Highest paid
$66,920
AK
Best off, really
$54,966
AK, after tax and prices
Lowest tenth
$28,560
Highest tenth
$65,790
Lowest, really
$22,001
MS
States with data
50
National average
$46,420
mean, not median
Prices where it goes furthest
101.72%
AK, against a national 100
Where this job actually pays best
- Where you do this job matters enormously. The best state pays roughly twice what the worst does. Prices alone cannot explain a gap that size. Level everything out and the range still runs $22,001 to $54,966.
- 524,770 people do this job across the country, and the middle one earns $41,670. Common work, though not one of the giants.
- This job is not published everywhere — 50 jurisdictions have a figure, with $41,670 in the middle. Where one is missing, it was never released. Alaska tops the ones that are.
- Geographic dispersion in substitute teachers, short-term is unusually wide: the top state's median is approximately double the bottom's, a spread that price differentials cannot account for. The real-terms range, after tax and price deflation, still runs $22,001 to $54,966 — so the variation reflects genuine differences in local labor markets rather than a nominal illusion.
- National employment in substitute teachers, short-term is 524,770 — a substantial occupation, though an order of magnitude below the largest. Regional differentials here move real aggregate sums without dominating any single state's wage bill.
- 50 jurisdictions carry a published median for substitute teachers, short-term. ⚠️ Suppression is not random: it correlates with small state-level samples, so the reported set skews toward larger employers of this occupation.
Pay band: Substitute Teachers, Short-Term
The national median for this job
50thpercentile, roughly
| Lowest tenth earn under | $28,560 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $41,670 |
| Top tenth earn over | $65,790 |
| This salary | $41,670 |
Positions between the published tenth, quarter, half, three-quarter and ninetieth points are estimated by straight line.
Where these numbers come from
| BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS), May 2025 estimates, time-series bulk download (oe.data.0.Current) | as of 2025-05-01 |
|---|
Steps in Substitute Teachers, Short-Term
The national median for this job
$41,670around the 50th percentile
| Lowest tenth | $28,560 |
|---|---|
| Middle | $41,670 |
| Top tenth | $65,790 |
The five points BLS publishes. Nothing between them is invented.
Substitute Teachers, Short-Term, state by state
The national median for this job
50states publish pay for this job
| Lowest | Mississippi · $22,340 |
|---|---|
| Highest | Alaska · $66,920 |
| Spread | $44,580 |
One dot per state that publishes this job. A missing state means suppressed data, not zero pay.
Best paid, and best off
The national median for this job
| Texas pays | $32,040 |
|---|---|
| Worth, after local prices | $32,971 |
Median pay against the same pay once BEA price parities are applied.
Every state, three ways
Sorted by what the money is actually worth. "Kept" is take-home for a single filer after federal, FICA and state income tax. "Really worth" divides that by the state's own price level, so a dollar in each row buys the same thing. Tap a state to put your own salary into it. States BLS does not publish for this job are absent — that means no published figure, not no work.
| State | Median pay | Kept after tax | Really worth |
|---|---|---|---|
| AK | $66,920 | $55,908 | $54,966 |
| WV | $49,020 | $40,165 | $44,741 |
| CA | $60,300 | $48,821 | $43,365 |
| WA | $55,740 | $46,967 | $43,263 |
| HI | $58,530 | $46,204 | $42,541 |
| OR | $58,280 | $44,459 | $42,454 |
| MN | $50,390 | $40,765 | $41,421 |
| ND | $42,570 | $36,385 | $41,080 |
| WI | $43,950 | $36,181 | $38,863 |
| PA | $44,870 | $36,856 | $37,801 |
| RI | $45,590 | $37,522 | $36,999 |
| DC | $49,790 | $40,365 | $36,429 |
| MD | $46,470 | $37,675 | $36,238 |
| IA | $37,230 | $31,291 | $35,251 |
| WY | $36,990 | $31,901 | $35,115 |
| NE | $37,690 | $31,453 | $34,802 |
| OH | $37,150 | $31,725 | $34,554 |
| MI | $39,500 | $32,490 | $34,497 |
| NM | $36,400 | $30,830 | $34,109 |
| NJ | $43,780 | $36,486 | $33,509 |
| GA | $38,870 | $32,071 | $33,166 |
| VT | $38,200 | $31,850 | $32,959 |
| IN | $36,360 | $30,352 | $32,926 |
| NY | $43,490 | $35,373 | $32,866 |
| KS | $36,190 | $29,528 | $32,821 |
| IL | $39,410 | $32,040 | $32,411 |
| AZ | $38,500 | $32,555 | $32,199 |
| MO | $34,790 | $29,436 | $32,079 |
| ME | $37,440 | $31,002 | $31,929 |
| VA | $39,020 | $32,050 | $31,811 |
| UT | $36,490 | $29,876 | $31,448 |
| ID | $34,080 | $28,610 | $31,294 |
| MA | $41,350 | $33,657 | $31,096 |
| FL | $37,080 | $31,974 | $30,907 |
| CT | $38,460 | $31,872 | $30,738 |
| DE | $36,510 | $30,056 | $30,283 |
| NC | $33,780 | $28,483 | $30,256 |
| AR | $29,230 | $25,043 | $28,949 |
| NH | $34,990 | $30,294 | $28,757 |
| TX | $32,040 | $27,924 | $28,736 |
| SC | $30,400 | $26,300 | $28,226 |
| TN | $29,500 | $25,883 | $27,977 |
| SD | $27,840 | $24,536 | $27,852 |
| KY | $29,730 | $25,145 | $27,794 |
| LA | $27,370 | $23,714 | $26,843 |
| MT | $28,050 | $24,148 | $26,758 |
| AL | $25,340 | $21,447 | $23,838 |
| OK | $23,770 | $20,615 | $23,351 |
| NV | $24,960 | $22,165 | $22,855 |
| MS | $22,340 | $19,205 | $22,001 |
Sources and assumptions
- A median is the middle of the range, not a starting salary and not an offer. Half of substitute teachers, short-term earn less than the figures here and half earn more, and experience, employer and city move an individual a long way from the middle. Nationally the middle earns $41,670.
- One filer, no dependants, nothing paid into a pension before tax — that is the household behind every take-home figure for substitute teachers, short-term. It is the simplest case on purpose, so the states can be compared against each other rather than against each other's family circumstances. City income taxes are not counted. On that household, Alaska keeps the most at $55,908.
- Levelling out prices for substitute teachers, short-term is done with one number per state, which is a simplification. Living costs inside a state vary a lot between its cities and its countryside. The comparison shows which way the ranking moves, not an exact figure for any address — Mississippi sits at the bottom on $22,001.
- Figures are medians of the published wage distribution for substitute teachers, short-term, not entry-level or offer wages. The national median is $41,670, with half of workers below it; dispersion within a state routinely exceeds the dispersion between states, driven by tenure, employer size, sector and metropolitan area. An individual's position in the distribution is not predictable from geography alone.
- The household modeled for substitute teachers, short-term is a single filer, standard deduction, no dependants, no pre-tax contributions. Holding the household constant is what makes the interstate comparison meaningful; it also means the absolute figures overstate liability for most real filers. On that basis Alaska retains the most, $55,908. Municipal and school-district income taxes are not included in any state.
- The price deflation applied to substitute teachers, short-term uses state-level parities. Within-state dispersion in price level, concentrated in housing, is large enough that a state figure describes no particular locality well; the bottom of this occupation's real range is Mississippi at $22,001. The comparison establishes the direction and rough magnitude of the reordering rather than an address-level result — Mississippi anchors the bottom at $22,001 — and the two source series are dated independently.