Salaries in general education in Russian regions

One of the functions of a social state is providing decent wages for labor. This is especially topical for the most important social areas — healthcare and education. In recent years, raising teacher’s salary has become one of the most important issues, but the problem is still far from being resolved. The aim of the work is to analyze the level of teachers’ salaries in municipal schools in 2013–2017 in the RF subjects with different levels of economic development. As the main indicators there were selected nominal average monthly salary of teachers, their salary in relation to the average wage in the region, and their salary in relation to the subsistence minimum of the working age population. On the basis of cluster analysis using the Ward method, there were created cartograms for the first two indicators presenting their dynamics. The analysis shows that in the period under review, the salary of teaching staff grew at a slower pace than the average wage across the country and in the majority of the RF subjects. The level of economic development of a region has a significant impact on the salary of teachers. In financial centers, industrialized and mining regions, work remuneration of teachers grew at a higher rate than in less developed agricultural ones. As a result, the interregional differentiation of teachers’ salaries in general education has increased. This indicates that the state policy aimed at raising salaries in the general education system does not reach its goal, and it is necessary to increase the state funding of general education.