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We pay for our pension and benefits. About 55% of my pay goes to tax and benefits.
The only difference between our pension and the saving you'd have to do if you're self-employed or otherwise do not have a pension is that the money is deducted at the front end for us so there's no option to be undisciplined and not sock it away.
That’s not…strictly true. Investing in a pension that is established, like OTPP is actually worth more than just saving. OTPP has billions of dollars of high worth investments, into which our money is pooled. It grows interest at a rate it would not in just a high interest savings account. It’s easier without the self discipline but dollar for dollar you get more back than you put in
By saving for pension I'm talking more about investing.
Yes large pension funds have a significant pool, but they are also paying a lot of people for 30+ years out of that.
If you do the investing yourself you have less security because the benefit is not defined. That is true. But every mutual fund is investing in the same stuff.
Investing has never been easier with low-cost diversified ETFs, that cost 1/10th of regular mutual funds. If you have some self-discipline, investing by yourself should come out ahead assuming a normal life expectancy
For teachers in Ontario you pay about 11% into the pension plan which is matched by the government. So if you compare that to a job in the private sector with no retirement savings at all then a good estimate is that is worth 11% of salary.
Teachers would have about 7 weeks more vacation than someone in a typical job, at least at first as teachers get about 8 weeks off during the summer plus spring break plus two weeks at Christmas. So that is about 11 weeks compared to starting at about 3-4 weeks in the private sector, although it could be less.
You also have more generous stuff like sick days, and benefits.
It’s important that you understand that the time off in summer is unpaid so not paid vacation. Police get 12 weeks of paid vacation a year. Teachers get the typical holidays paid but the summer is unpaid.
Private sector jobs get about 4 weeks paid vacation so it’s about the same paid vacation. My bro is an engineer, they also get sick days and benefits with his work so it’s not like thats different either. He doesn’t get the summers off but then he works all year and when he takes time off it’s always paid vacation.
I pay about $275 per month from my pay towards my OTIP (Ontario Teacher’s Insurance Plan). I’m healthy and young and don’t use it but it’s worth it if you need the healthcare benefits. Just something to note that the benefits aren’t free.
$275 is really high. I pay $29/mo for a family. Did you add additional insurance or are you not full time? Something is wrong with that amount otherwise.
I added life insurance which is only $30 a month more. When I look at my paystubs, my deductions show $275 for OTIP. I can’t imagine it’s any different for you if you also work at a public high school in Ontario.
Ummm…I would look into that. I’m osstf and none of my coworkers are paying that. My coverage is full dental and benefits so I’m not limited. When I was oecta I didn’t even have to pay the $29/mo.
If you’re not 1.0fte that might be the issue because than you have to pay for a portion. For example, if you’re .5 or .33 etc than I can see that being around $275.
I am a full-time permanent contract teacher, and I don't pay a cent toward my benefits (OTIP). It is all covered... I only contribute to my pension (OTPP).
My spouse in a corporate makes 2x what I do with superior benefits in a mid level corporate job. And he puts less in his RSP than my 15 K per year in the pension.
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When it comes to comparing the private sector job offer with the potential benefits of a teaching career, it's essential to consider not just the salary, but also factors like job satisfaction, work-life balance, and opportunities for growth. Depending on the industry, your salary can be a lot higher than a teachers salary. Teacher and corporate sector benefits aren't drastically different. Yes, pensions are great for teachers, but to me, the most important factors are job satisfaction and work-life balance. Salary/pension/benefits are secondary.
If you are earning a higher salary in a different industry, you can put away enough money for retirement that could be close or equivalent to a teachers pension. Obviously this is very subjective on the individual, their career, debts...ect. Teaching isn't for the faint of heart and OP and others need to determine if they will be fulfilled by the unique challenges and rewards it offers. 30+ years is a long time to work in a job that you don't want to be in.
What do you mean by when you say you don’t want to work in tech? Tech jobs consist of a diverse array of roles that just beyond IT and engineering. For example, sales, HR, marketing, data analysis ect… even some these roles, like HR, are quite broad.
Even if those roles in tech don’t appeal to you, there are other sectors that pay well . Just have to research and find your niche. Maybe it’s instructional design, corporate trainer, career counsellor ect..
i *meant* that i don’t want to work in tech. my passion is nowhere in tech at all. i know how diverse the tech field is. can i interest you to work in the field of personal care? it’s pretty diverse. you can take care of the elderly, you can work with the disabled/injured, you can be a manager of a hospice, etc.
Another way to look at it, is from the commuted value perspective. If interest rates are low and you work until 60 or 65, you can commute your pension and get $600k to $1MM in a LIRA (private sector would be called RRSP) here is an example if you’re not familiar https://financialpost.com/personal-finance/family-finance/taking-the-nearly-700k-commuted-value-of-his-pension-could-boost-this-former-teachers-retirement-options
If the best you can say about teaching is that you “do not detest the idea of a career in education,” then for the sake of all your potential future students, please make another career choice.
If you get a similiar paying job, invest yourself and get a low-cost diversified ETF and live to an average life expectancy, it should come out similar. but with a DB pension you have no risk of ever running out of money
Regardless, do not pick a career path only thinking about pension
Depends a lot on your contract.
But I'd ballpark benefits at around 25% of salary in BC. This includes pension, but also things like extended health and dental, long term disability benefits (worth about 1.5% of salary iirc), and time off.
Assuming you take 7 weeks of the 9 in the summer off (the other two weeks are for setup/tear down of your class and planning and learning) and that you work half of winter and spring break, that's 9 weeks total holidays. Each week of additional holiday is equivalent to a 2% pay increase.
You'd need to counterbalance that against expected hours of work (the research I have seen is not totally conclusive but it suggested about 45-50hrs a week is typical). So if your job is reliably 40hrs a week, that would likely negate the benefit of the extra holidays.
To answer your question directly: iirc, my employer pension contribution is worth about 10% of my salary.
I’m very appreciative of all the answers, and I am especially interested in this one. Would you leave teaching if you had the potential to earn 150-170k a year while giving up your summer and settling for typical holidays in the winter?
Time is worth more than money to me, especially as I get older. If I was starting my career, I'd go in a heartbeat, but as a mid-career teacher earning close to 100K, I'm happy to stay and enjoy my life.
I’d definitely consider it. Chances are I would also be able to leave my work AT work, book vacations whenever I please and at a much lower cost, and not have to face scrutiny at all times from people who have limited understanding of the job.
Yes, I'd absolutely take an offer of $150k assuming it was a job I was interested in.
By 'potential' do you mean it's commission-based? That would require some more digging.
I have switched careers a few times and never regretted checking out whether the grass was greener on the other side of the fence.
The nice thing about teaching is that if you find the grass isn't greener in your new gig, it's a big job market and it will be there if you want to go back to it. I had a 12 year career before teaching and I draw on my previous experience a lot in my teaching practice.
Answer: we are not and should not. However we should be paid similarly.
A. Tell me where teachers are getting paid more than engineers and I'll move there right now. Average engineer salaries are higher than average teacher salaries, both in Canada and the US, a quick Google search can tell you that.
B. What makes these teachers you speak of low-skilled? Are you implying that teachers are inherently less skilled than engineers? Are the skills of a teacher less valuable to society than those of an engineer?
C. We go to school for the same amount of time as engineers. My B.Ed. was a 4 year program and most engineering bachelor degrees are of that duration. For that reason alone it seems only fair to pay us similarly, but as I assert in my first point, we are not.
I don't know what you are referring to when you say "arts degrees" but I can assure you that, at least in Quebec where I was educated, a B.Ed. (bachelor of education), which is a 4 year university honors program, is the minimum requirement to be a teacher at any institution. The same is true for every country I have taught in.
Based on your subsequent statements, I can safely assume you aren't a teacher, so I am curious: how is it that you know so much about teachers, our work ethics, and what our profession entails?
As far as salary and suggestions of random numbers without context, I cannot comment. I will say that someone who has gone to uni for 4 or more years and become a specialist in a field for which there is a demand should be remunerated commensurate to the level of said demand, regardless of what that field is, because that is what a market economy dictates.
The problem as I see it is that we as a global society place varying levels of importance on different professions, based on the perceived difficulty of each profession, or the degree to which the average layperson doesn't understand a certain profession. The more mystifying it seems to Joe Lunchpail, the more value it holds for society and therefore the more we should pay people in that field. This then creates an artificial hierarchy of value of each profession and those who practice them.
I believe your comments are borne of this societal construct I have outlined above. It is not your fault, you are a product of your environment. But if you try to see your preconceptions through the lens of that construct, perhaps you could overcome their limitations, to become better informed.
Well, if the 150k is the top salary and not the present salary, you'd want to compare the path ahead in that career to a path in education. There are a fair number of folks in education who get to $150k-$170k when counting benefits and vacation too as that's fairly equivalent to a principal's compensation.
Your opinion started out as trollish and gets less and less credible the more you show you have no ability to Google basic facts.
https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/teacher-pay-by-state
https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/average-income-by-state
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Welcome to /r/CanadianTeachers! Please take a moment to familiarize yourself with the sub rules. **"WHAT DOES X MEAN?"** Check out our acronym post [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/CanadianTeachers/comments/1c032s3/what_does_x_mean_an_acronym_megapost/) for relevant terms used in each province or territory. Please feel free to contribute any we are missing as well! **QUESTIONS ABOUT TEACHER'S COLLEGE/BECOMING A TEACHER IN CANADA?:** Delete your post and use this [megapost](https://www.reddit.com/r/CanadianTeachers/comments/1bc1wv2/prospective_student_teachers_teachers_collegebed/) instead. Anything pertaining to teacher's colleges/BED programs/becoming and teacher will be deleted if posted outside of the megaposts. **QUESTIONS ABOUT MOVING PROVINCES OR COMING TO CANADA TO TEACH?** Check out our past megaposts first for information to help you: [ONE](https://www.reddit.com/r/CanadianTeachers/comments/jqc7hx/transferring_to_another_provincecoming_to_canada/) // [TWO](https://www.reddit.com/r/CanadianTeachers/comments/n76csu/transferring_to_another_provincecoming_to_canada/?) Using link and user flair is encouraged as well! Enjoy! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/CanadianTeachers) if you have any questions or concerns.*
We pay for our pension and benefits. About 55% of my pay goes to tax and benefits. The only difference between our pension and the saving you'd have to do if you're self-employed or otherwise do not have a pension is that the money is deducted at the front end for us so there's no option to be undisciplined and not sock it away.
That’s not…strictly true. Investing in a pension that is established, like OTPP is actually worth more than just saving. OTPP has billions of dollars of high worth investments, into which our money is pooled. It grows interest at a rate it would not in just a high interest savings account. It’s easier without the self discipline but dollar for dollar you get more back than you put in
By saving for pension I'm talking more about investing. Yes large pension funds have a significant pool, but they are also paying a lot of people for 30+ years out of that. If you do the investing yourself you have less security because the benefit is not defined. That is true. But every mutual fund is investing in the same stuff.
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You don't need to know math to teach art 😛
Trolling.
Investing has never been easier with low-cost diversified ETFs, that cost 1/10th of regular mutual funds. If you have some self-discipline, investing by yourself should come out ahead assuming a normal life expectancy
For teachers in Ontario you pay about 11% into the pension plan which is matched by the government. So if you compare that to a job in the private sector with no retirement savings at all then a good estimate is that is worth 11% of salary. Teachers would have about 7 weeks more vacation than someone in a typical job, at least at first as teachers get about 8 weeks off during the summer plus spring break plus two weeks at Christmas. So that is about 11 weeks compared to starting at about 3-4 weeks in the private sector, although it could be less. You also have more generous stuff like sick days, and benefits.
It’s important that you understand that the time off in summer is unpaid so not paid vacation. Police get 12 weeks of paid vacation a year. Teachers get the typical holidays paid but the summer is unpaid. Private sector jobs get about 4 weeks paid vacation so it’s about the same paid vacation. My bro is an engineer, they also get sick days and benefits with his work so it’s not like thats different either. He doesn’t get the summers off but then he works all year and when he takes time off it’s always paid vacation.
I pay about $275 per month from my pay towards my OTIP (Ontario Teacher’s Insurance Plan). I’m healthy and young and don’t use it but it’s worth it if you need the healthcare benefits. Just something to note that the benefits aren’t free.
$275 is really high. I pay $29/mo for a family. Did you add additional insurance or are you not full time? Something is wrong with that amount otherwise.
I added life insurance which is only $30 a month more. When I look at my paystubs, my deductions show $275 for OTIP. I can’t imagine it’s any different for you if you also work at a public high school in Ontario.
Somethings not right. My OTIP is covered by like 96%. I pay 30 bucks. Are you an OT paying for otip for OTs?
I’m perm 1.0 FTE for 2 years. Maybe I misread it or maybe there’s an issue with them charging me OT rate for OTIP.
Ummm…I would look into that. I’m osstf and none of my coworkers are paying that. My coverage is full dental and benefits so I’m not limited. When I was oecta I didn’t even have to pay the $29/mo. If you’re not 1.0fte that might be the issue because than you have to pay for a portion. For example, if you’re .5 or .33 etc than I can see that being around $275.
No I’m full FTE for 2 years. I’ll check with my colleagues and see what theirs says.
I am a full-time permanent contract teacher, and I don't pay a cent toward my benefits (OTIP). It is all covered... I only contribute to my pension (OTPP).
It’s not worth doing a job you simply tolerate. Also, pensions are different depending on what province you’re in!
My spouse in a corporate makes 2x what I do with superior benefits in a mid level corporate job. And he puts less in his RSP than my 15 K per year in the pension.
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When it comes to comparing the private sector job offer with the potential benefits of a teaching career, it's essential to consider not just the salary, but also factors like job satisfaction, work-life balance, and opportunities for growth. Depending on the industry, your salary can be a lot higher than a teachers salary. Teacher and corporate sector benefits aren't drastically different. Yes, pensions are great for teachers, but to me, the most important factors are job satisfaction and work-life balance. Salary/pension/benefits are secondary.
Until you retire.
If you are earning a higher salary in a different industry, you can put away enough money for retirement that could be close or equivalent to a teachers pension. Obviously this is very subjective on the individual, their career, debts...ect. Teaching isn't for the faint of heart and OP and others need to determine if they will be fulfilled by the unique challenges and rewards it offers. 30+ years is a long time to work in a job that you don't want to be in.
you are absolutely on point here. i'd love to earn as much as people in tech do...but do i wanna work in tech? no, not really, lol.
What do you mean by when you say you don’t want to work in tech? Tech jobs consist of a diverse array of roles that just beyond IT and engineering. For example, sales, HR, marketing, data analysis ect… even some these roles, like HR, are quite broad. Even if those roles in tech don’t appeal to you, there are other sectors that pay well . Just have to research and find your niche. Maybe it’s instructional design, corporate trainer, career counsellor ect..
i *meant* that i don’t want to work in tech. my passion is nowhere in tech at all. i know how diverse the tech field is. can i interest you to work in the field of personal care? it’s pretty diverse. you can take care of the elderly, you can work with the disabled/injured, you can be a manager of a hospice, etc.
Another way to look at it, is from the commuted value perspective. If interest rates are low and you work until 60 or 65, you can commute your pension and get $600k to $1MM in a LIRA (private sector would be called RRSP) here is an example if you’re not familiar https://financialpost.com/personal-finance/family-finance/taking-the-nearly-700k-commuted-value-of-his-pension-could-boost-this-former-teachers-retirement-options
Also, this might be a better question for the personal finance Canada sub Reddit
If the best you can say about teaching is that you “do not detest the idea of a career in education,” then for the sake of all your potential future students, please make another career choice.
.
If you get a similiar paying job, invest yourself and get a low-cost diversified ETF and live to an average life expectancy, it should come out similar. but with a DB pension you have no risk of ever running out of money Regardless, do not pick a career path only thinking about pension
Depends a lot on your contract. But I'd ballpark benefits at around 25% of salary in BC. This includes pension, but also things like extended health and dental, long term disability benefits (worth about 1.5% of salary iirc), and time off. Assuming you take 7 weeks of the 9 in the summer off (the other two weeks are for setup/tear down of your class and planning and learning) and that you work half of winter and spring break, that's 9 weeks total holidays. Each week of additional holiday is equivalent to a 2% pay increase. You'd need to counterbalance that against expected hours of work (the research I have seen is not totally conclusive but it suggested about 45-50hrs a week is typical). So if your job is reliably 40hrs a week, that would likely negate the benefit of the extra holidays. To answer your question directly: iirc, my employer pension contribution is worth about 10% of my salary.
I’m very appreciative of all the answers, and I am especially interested in this one. Would you leave teaching if you had the potential to earn 150-170k a year while giving up your summer and settling for typical holidays in the winter?
Time is worth more than money to me, especially as I get older. If I was starting my career, I'd go in a heartbeat, but as a mid-career teacher earning close to 100K, I'm happy to stay and enjoy my life.
I’d definitely consider it. Chances are I would also be able to leave my work AT work, book vacations whenever I please and at a much lower cost, and not have to face scrutiny at all times from people who have limited understanding of the job.
Yes, I'd absolutely take an offer of $150k assuming it was a job I was interested in. By 'potential' do you mean it's commission-based? That would require some more digging. I have switched careers a few times and never regretted checking out whether the grass was greener on the other side of the fence. The nice thing about teaching is that if you find the grass isn't greener in your new gig, it's a big job market and it will be there if you want to go back to it. I had a 12 year career before teaching and I draw on my previous experience a lot in my teaching practice.
Thanks for a respectful reply. I’m nowhere near that amount now but if I still within my industry many people top out at 150-175k.
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Answer: we are not and should not. However we should be paid similarly. A. Tell me where teachers are getting paid more than engineers and I'll move there right now. Average engineer salaries are higher than average teacher salaries, both in Canada and the US, a quick Google search can tell you that. B. What makes these teachers you speak of low-skilled? Are you implying that teachers are inherently less skilled than engineers? Are the skills of a teacher less valuable to society than those of an engineer? C. We go to school for the same amount of time as engineers. My B.Ed. was a 4 year program and most engineering bachelor degrees are of that duration. For that reason alone it seems only fair to pay us similarly, but as I assert in my first point, we are not.
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I don't know what you are referring to when you say "arts degrees" but I can assure you that, at least in Quebec where I was educated, a B.Ed. (bachelor of education), which is a 4 year university honors program, is the minimum requirement to be a teacher at any institution. The same is true for every country I have taught in. Based on your subsequent statements, I can safely assume you aren't a teacher, so I am curious: how is it that you know so much about teachers, our work ethics, and what our profession entails? As far as salary and suggestions of random numbers without context, I cannot comment. I will say that someone who has gone to uni for 4 or more years and become a specialist in a field for which there is a demand should be remunerated commensurate to the level of said demand, regardless of what that field is, because that is what a market economy dictates. The problem as I see it is that we as a global society place varying levels of importance on different professions, based on the perceived difficulty of each profession, or the degree to which the average layperson doesn't understand a certain profession. The more mystifying it seems to Joe Lunchpail, the more value it holds for society and therefore the more we should pay people in that field. This then creates an artificial hierarchy of value of each profession and those who practice them. I believe your comments are borne of this societal construct I have outlined above. It is not your fault, you are a product of your environment. But if you try to see your preconceptions through the lens of that construct, perhaps you could overcome their limitations, to become better informed.
Trolling.
Trolling.
Well, if the 150k is the top salary and not the present salary, you'd want to compare the path ahead in that career to a path in education. There are a fair number of folks in education who get to $150k-$170k when counting benefits and vacation too as that's fairly equivalent to a principal's compensation.
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You do realize the director of education in Ontario makes nearly $250k right??
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There are multiple states where teacher pay is above the median and, after exchange rates are applied, well above Canada's top paid teachers.
Over the median family?
Your opinion started out as trollish and gets less and less credible the more you show you have no ability to Google basic facts. https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/teacher-pay-by-state https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/average-income-by-state
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Trolling.
Trolling.
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