A new report shows Kentucky teachers are making less money than there were decades ago when accounting for inflation.

The progressive think tank that released the report says it's time the state offer more money, including across the board raises to educators.

Our June Lefler has more in tonight's Education Matters report.

Because of inflation, a dollar today just doesn't go as far as it used to.

But Dustin Pugel with the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy says private sector wages are keeping pace with inflation better than some public sector jobs like teaching.

According to data from the Kentucky Department of Education, after you adjust for inflation, teachers are making about 20% less now in the 2025 school year than they were in the 2008 school year.

That's around about $14,000 decline.

Those findings are in Pujols recent report.

It shows that Kentucky's teachers at best make the same as they did in 2008, considering inflation.

But some district wages have fallen as much as 30%, and.

Many districts do increase teacher pay.

It just has not been enough.

The head of Kentucky's teacher union says it's time to reverse course.

As we all know, in 2008, there was the recession.

The bubble popped and there was some tightening of the belts, especially for a lot of our public service.

But now that we've come out of that, and now that we're where our economy in the state is growing at an exponential rate, you know, it's time that we really refocus and start investing in the educators who are working with our students every single day.

Each school district sets its own salaries and negotiates with the local teachers union.

But districts total funding comes largely from the state budget set by state lawmakers.

Kentucky has been in the midst of a very long term decline in what's what's called our basic funding.

It's the core formula for how we fund public education in Kentucky.

So since 2008, that fund has dropped by an inflation adjusted 26%.

We think it's really important that the General Assembly either provide what it did in 2008, which was a dedicated teacher raise, or else push us closer to where we were in 2008 in terms of our basic funding.

Pujols report also notes that there are more tenured teachers now than there were in 2008.

In some sense, that's good.

You want more experienced teachers in the classroom.

That's helpful that we know that that improves student outcomes.

But in another sense, that's sort of a growing crisis because those teachers are nearing retirement.

And so if we have a whole group of more experienced teachers who are about to leave and fewer new teachers now than what we had in 2008, that teacher shortage is only going to be exacerbated.

And if we're not providing that type of incentive to come into that type of job, then folks who are training to become teachers are either going to look in other industries or they're going to look at other states and we're going to be stuck with an even bigger mess.

The General Assembly is unlikely to adjust seek funding this year.

It approved that funding last year in the state's overall two year budget.

For Kentucky Edition, I'm June Lefler.

Thank you, June.

Fiscal Conservatives Question Just how much more money is needed to pay teachers and fund schools?

Well, tomorrow night we'll hear their counter arguments against that report.