Hawaiʻi's public school teachers now earn an average of $75,860 a year, enough to rank the state 16th in the nation for teacher pay during the 2024–2025 school year. But that ranking masks a familiar problem: the state's brutal cost of living continues to undercut those paychecks, leaving Hawaiʻi struggling to recruit and retain educators even as its salary numbers climb.
The figures come from a National Education Association analysis reported by Civil Beat, which found that Hawaiʻi teacher pay rose roughly 2% on average in 2024, a modest bump compared to the 3.5% increase seen nationally that pushed the national average teacher salary to $74,495. New teachers in Hawaiʻi start at an average of $51,835, ahead of the national average starting salary of $48,112. Reporter Megan Tagami, who covers education for the outlet, notes that Hawaiʻi's average salary is barely above where it stood a decade earlier once adjusted for inflation — $75,454 in 2014–2015 dollars, according to the same analysis.
How Hawaiʻi Stacks Up Against Other States
The comparison to other high-cost and low-cost states is stark. California teachers averaged $103,552 during the same period, and New York educators earned more than $98,000, according to the NEA data cited in the report. Meanwhile, teachers in Florida, Louisiana, and Mississippi all made less than $60,000 in 2025. Hawaiʻi's number sits well above the lowest-paying states but far below the top earners in expensive coastal markets, even though Hawaiʻi's own housing and living costs rank among the nation's highest.
That gap between nominal pay and real purchasing power has been a defining feature of the state's teacher workforce for years. According to background reporting compiled from the Hawaiʻi State Teachers Association, the state has leaned heavily on targeted financial incentives to plug staffing gaps rather than relying on across-the-board increases alone. Hawaiʻi's $10,000 annual shortage differential for licensed special education teachers is the highest targeted bonus of its kind in the country, per a 2025 National Council on Teacher Quality survey cited by the union. The state also offers differentials of $3,000 to $8,000 for hard-to-staff geographic locations and $8,000 for Hawaiian language immersion programs.
Targeted Bonuses Created Their Own Problems
Those incentives have not come without side effects. A study reported by The Hechinger Report in April 2024 found that while the $10,000 special education differential succeeded in reducing unlicensed special ed positions, it also pulled dually certified general education teachers into special ed roles, aggravating shortages elsewhere in the system. Educational economists cited in that reporting noted that targeted pay hikes often just reshuffle the existing pool of credentialed teachers rather than expanding it.
The union's own data shows the broader recruitment picture has improved. Statewide teacher vacancies dropped to roughly 340 positions in August 2023, down from more than 1,000 at the start of the 2022–2023 school year, following pay hikes and union advocacy, per the state teachers association. Even so, officials cautioned at the time that a coming wave of teacher retirements remains a long-term threat to those gains.
Emergency Hires Still Fill the Gaps
Hawaiʻi has continued relying on unlicensed teachers to fill vacant positions the state can't staff with credentialed educators. Those emergency hires must hold a bachelor's degree and work toward earning a teaching license while receiving a starting salary of $53,649, according to state guidelines reported by Civil Beat in August 2025. Education researchers have cautioned that while emergency hires keep classrooms open, they can be associated with lower math and science outcomes compared to certified staff.
Hawaiʻi's governance structure sets it apart from every other state in a way that shapes all of these numbers. Unlike states where individual local school boards set minimum pay scales, Hawaiʻi operates a single statewide school district where teacher salary schedules are negotiated exclusively through statewide collective bargaining, according to an Oregon Legislative Information System analysis. All public and charter school teachers fall under one bargaining unit represented by the state teachers union, meaning a single contract sets pay for every classroom from Hilo to Kailua.
What Happens When the Current Contract Expires
That contract structure is about to matter again. Hawaiʻi's public school teachers have a current contract that expires in June, meaning the teachers union will need to bargain with state leaders later in the school year over what comes next. Under the current salary schedule, annual raises would amount to roughly 3%, though teachers were not guaranteed automatic pay increases going into this cycle — annual raises depend on available funding lawmakers choose to provide.
Hawaiʻi lawmakers have already acted on part of that uncertainty, passing a bill aimed at guaranteeing annual salary raises for the state's teachers. Under the four-year collective bargaining agreement between the union and the state, educators are set to receive a cumulative 14.5% raise between July 2023 and June 2027, along with a new Class VIII salary schedule for teachers with advanced education, according to the Hawaiʻi State Teachers Association. Teachers will receive a 3.5% raise under that agreement, though the union has noted that teachers previously went without raises tied to years of experience during a period of economic uncertainty.
Underlying all of this is a funding picture that still lags national norms. Research published by Hawaiʻi Scholars for Education and Social Justice in January 2025 found that Hawaiʻi ranks among the lowest states in the share of state and local expenditures devoted to K-12 education, spending 15.1% compared to a 21.5% national average. Hawaiʻi remains the only state operating a single statewide school district that doesn't rely on local property taxes for school funding, a structural quirk that shapes how far any raise can go once it's spread across the whole system.
