From Carolina Public Press:

The good news for professors at the three public universities in Western North Carolina is that they got raises this year. The bad news is that the raises aren’t much and that they’re less than the rate of inflation.

In June, the N.C. General Assembly gave all state employees, including faculty at the 17 University of North Carolina-system schools, a 1.2 percent raise, appropriating $22.2 million to do so. The rate of inflation this year stood at 2.2 percent in October, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Inflation’s toll on professors’ salary – on everyone’s wages, really – is historic. The American Association of University Professors surveyed 1,251 colleges about how much they paid their full-time faculty members during the 2011-2012 academic year and found that their average 1.8 percent raises were swallowed by 3 percent inflation.