On October 2, 1939, the Seattle School Board cuts by 4.5 percent the salaries of all teachers and employees receiving more than $1,200 per year. The measure, part of the board's 1939-1940 budget, affects approximately 1,900 teachers and 500 staff members. The cuts result from declining revenues during the Great Depression.
Before the cut, some 60 percent of Seattle's teachers were at the top of their pay scale, $2,400 and $2,700 a year, depending on the educational degrees they held.
Sources:
Seattle Post-Intelligencer, September 16, 1939, p. 1; Ibid., October 3, 1939, p. 1.
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