{"id":697222,"date":"2026-06-11T06:45:16","date_gmt":"2026-06-11T06:45:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/697222\/"},"modified":"2026-06-11T06:45:16","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T06:45:16","slug":"in-a-tough-economy-many-u-s-teachers-are-forced-to-work-second-jobs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/697222\/","title":{"rendered":"In a tough economy, many U.S. teachers are forced to work second jobs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Plainfield, New Jersey \u2014 From the time she was a child, Christine Regal of Plainfield, New Jersey, knew she wanted to be a teacher.<\/p>\n

“I just love working with kids,” the 54-year-old Regal told CBS News. “I love the kids. I mean, I’ve been teaching for 26 years, and I still remain in contact with a lot of them.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

But that devotion to her craft requires quite a few side hustles to pay the bills. Regal does breakfast and lunch duty at the elementary school where she teaches. She tutors students after school and works part-time at the Cheesecake Factory. <\/p>\n

According to<\/a> the annual Walton Family Foundation\u2011Gallup Teaching for Tomorrow report released in March, 21% of K-12 public school teachers surveyed said they were struggling financially, and 71% of teachers surveyed said they work at least one second job.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, the Labor Department reported<\/a> that the Consumer Price Index rose in May at an annual rate of 4.2%, the highest such inflation rate since April 2023.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I’m getting hit everywhere,” Regal said of her financial struggles. “Just this past weekend, it cost me $70 to put gas in my car. Last night, I went grocery shopping, two bags of groceries, $160. That’s where I’m getting hit.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

When school lets out for the summer, Regal says she will continue waitressing for extra cash. She also has to budget for school supplies. She usually spends up to $1,500 per year of her own money to supplement her classroom.<\/p>\n

“Luckily, I have a co-teacher where we split everything, but I know she’s feeling a hit herself and we’ve already had conversations, like, we’re going to have to probably take it easy, especially with her, because she just has a new baby.”<\/p>\n

Regal, who is single, says she will “probably” retire at age 60. <\/p>\n

“I’m going to just keep hustling and just keep putting money away, and then pray that when I hit 60, that things will be a lot different.”<\/p>\n

\n More from CBS News\n <\/p>\n

\n Go deeper with The Free Press\n <\/p>\n

In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Plainfield, New Jersey \u2014 From the time she was a child, Christine Regal of Plainfield, New Jersey, knew…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":697223,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,526,2402,3,3198,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-697222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-education","tag-inflation","tag-news","tag-teachers","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697222","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=697222"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697222\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/697223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=697222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=697222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=697222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}