Poll: Two-thirds say they’d pay higher taxes to increase teachers’ salaries

Two-thirds of Americans would vote to raise their own taxes in order to increase teachers’ salaries in public schools across the country, according to a new poll.

A New York Times/SurveyMonkey poll released this week found support for raising teachers’ pay across party lines, with 56 percent of Republicans joining a majority of Democrats and independents in calling for taxes to be raised to facilitate a teacher pay raise.

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Nearly three in four adults, 71 percent, say teacher pay is on average too low in America, compared to just 6 percent who say it is too high.

The poll mirrors similar results in recent surveys from The Associated Press and NPR.

The AP-NORC poll taken in April found slightly lower support for teachers’ strikes that still cut across party lines. Seventy-eight percent of respondents in that poll said teachers were not paid enough, but just around 50 percent supported tax hikes to pay for increased salaries.

Sentiment in favor of raising teacher salaries was lowest among Republicans in that poll, with 66 percent of GOP voters saying teacher salaries were too low compared to 78 percent of independents and nearly 90 percent of Democrats.

NPR’s poll, conducted in late April, also found that two-thirds of Americans support teachers’ right to strike for higher pay. Teachers’ strikes have popped up in states such as Arizona, Colorado, Kentucky, and West Virginia as teachers around the country have protested low pay, poor health benefits and low per-student spending.

The Times’ poll was conducted online among 10,167 adults between May 7-13, and carries a margin of error of 1.5 percentage points.