How much does a middle school teacher make in Washington?

The median wage for middle school teachers in Washington is $102,140 a year.

Half earn more than that and half earn less. The figure comes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics occupational wage survey for May 2025.

BLS’s mean (average) wage for middle school teachers in Washington is $99,330 a year. The median is $102,140.

The mean sits higher when a smaller group of high earners pulls the average up. For a typical paycheck, the median is the better middle.

BLS does not publish starting pay. The closest figure it does publish is the low end of the range: in Washington, the lowest-paid 10% of middle school teachers earn under $65,250 a year and a quarter earn under $81,010.

New hires often start somewhere in that band, but the May 2025 survey does not record experience, so read it as a floor to compare an offer against rather than a typical first salary.

The overall salary range for middle school teachers in Washington spans from $65,250 for the bottom 10% to $128,170 for top earners.

The middle 50% earn between $81,010 and $118,740 a year, with the overall median at $102,140.

On the median wage of $102,140, a single filer taking the 2026 standard deduction keeps an estimated $80,685 a year, or roughly $6,724 a month.

That is after federal and FICA tax, an effective rate of 21%.

Washington levies no state income tax on wages, so nothing is withheld for it.

On the median annual salary of $102,140, estimated take-home pay is roughly $6,724 a month after federal, state, and FICA taxes.

For workers paid on a standard biweekly schedule (26 pay periods per year), each paycheck is approximately $3,103 net.

Yes. The median in Washington is 58.7% above the national median of $64,370.

Nominal pay is only half the comparison: prices in Washington sit at 107 against a national 100, so the gap in what the money buys is different from the gap in the salary.

It is 1.04 times the median household income of $98,141. A household often has more than one earner, so a single salary at this level goes further than the ratio alone suggests.

Prices in Washington run at 107 against a national average of 100, with rents at 126, so $102,140 here buys about what $95,446 buys at national average prices.

The top tenth earn $128,170 a year or more. The 10th-percentile wage is $65,250.

Experience, specialty, employer and the part of Washington someone works in all move a wage inside that range; the survey reports the spread, not the reason for it.

The survey counted 10,510 of these jobs in Washington for May 2025.

That makes the occupation 26% less concentrated here than in the country as a whole. It counts wage and salary jobs, so the self-employed are outside it.