A new watchdog report finds hundreds of teachers’ union employees have collected six-figure salaries at the expense of dues-paying teachers, who often make far less.
National teachers’ unions, like the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the National Education Association (NEA), have spent almost a combined $1.5 billion on salaries, compensation, and employee benefits from 2016 to 2023, according to Internal Revenue Service documents obtained by Defending Education and shared exclusively with National Review.
Hundreds of employees at both the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers took home six-figure salaries: 475 employees and officers at NEA and 273 employees and officers at AFT.
But according to NEA’s Educator Pay Data from 2026, the average national starting salary for a teacher is $48,112. Further, only 10 percent of school districts surveyed offer a top salary of $119,000.
Comparatively, of the 708 employees at NEA, 505 receive a salary of more than $75,000.
Meanwhile, NEA President Rebecca Pringle earned a gross salary of $365,708 last year, according to the Center for Union Facts.
Defending Education’s report includes compensation data from national, state, and local teachers’ unions covering all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The report found total teacher union spending from 2016 to 2023 on employee compensation alone was almost $8.5 billion.
An LM-2 form from NEA reveals the union only spent 9 percent of its funding on representing teachers, despite claiming its mission is “to advocate for education professionals and to unite our members and the nation to fulfill the promise of public education to prepare every student to succeed in a diverse and interdependent world,” according to the NEA website.
“These compensation numbers along with past spending habits show that the teachers unions are first and foremost professional far-left activists who use members’ dues to advance their leftwing agenda,” Rhyen Staley, director of research for Defending Education, told National Review in a statement.
According to the report, 14 states and one local union — New York City’s United Federation of Teachers — account for 61 percent of the spending. The states include California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Washington.
“Of the ten states with the strongest teacher unions, eight had Democratic trifectas in 2024 — Democratic leadership in the governor’s office and both legislative chambers. Moreover, 13 of the 15 states with the strongest unions went blue in the 2024 presidential election,” according to researchers from the Fordham Institute.
Participation in teachers’ unions has continued to drop. The NEA, for example, first saw its membership decrease in 2018, and the trend has held ever since. But even as teachers flee the unions, the groups continue to earn more and more money in dues. In 2024, for example, the NEA collected $381.4 million in dues — $7.2 million more than it collected one year prior.
Since 2015, teachers’ unions have spent a combined $1 billion on left-wing political activism, National Review previously reported. AFT and NEA, for example, spent a combined $669 million in member dues over the past ten years exclusively on political activism.
Recipients of funds include, but are not limited to, For Our Future, a progressive political group focusing on social equity and climate justice in key battleground states; the House and Senate Majority PACs; Strategic Victory Fund, a PAC created in 2020 to defeat President Donald Trump; and groups like the Human Rights Campaign Foundation, Planned Parenthood Votes, and the Trevor Project.
A Harvard-Harris poll from earlier this year revealed 60 percent of voters feel teachers unions should stay out of political issues.
“While millions of American students continue to struggle to read and do math, the teachers unions are focused on lining their own pockets and fomenting a ‘political revolution.’ There needs to be accountability for these transgressions and failures,” said Staley, the director of research for Defending Education.
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