There is significant public policy concern that teacher salaries in the United States are insufficient to make teaching in public schools financially attractive; consequently, there are not enough high-quality teachers. This concern has been particularly acute of late for two reasons. First, new empirical research shows teacher quality to be the most important schooling variable influencing student achievement. Second, a combination of increasing student enrollments, an aging teacher workforce, and class size reduction policies have resulted in what some consider to be an imminent teacher shortage. A number of policymakers and high-profile reports have made the recommendation to raise teacher salaries. This is consistent with a widespread perception that teachers are poorly paid and have lost ground economically when compared with those employed in other occupations. Is this perception correct? The short answer is that it depends on how teacher salaries are measured and with what they are compared. More importantly, this may not be the right question if one wants to better understand how financially attractive it is to be in the teacher labor market. This is because the financial opportunity costs--the salaries teachers must forgo to enter and remain in the teaching profession--can differ significantly from individual to individual. It is therefore problematic to treat teachers as a generic entity. Although the authors use the generic term "teacher salaries," in this article they focus on what the right teacher salary comparisons are for teachers with different training and educational experiences. They draw on a variety of data sources to provide several benchmarks showing how teacher salaries compare with those in other occupations and how they have changed over time. Based on these comparisons, this article discusses how financially attractive it is to teach in public schools for people with different training and backgrounds. (Contains 4 tables, 5 figures, and 23 footnotes.)