Over the course of their careers, teachers in certain cities earn far less than those in others and reach the top of the pay scale far later, making it hard for them to live a basic middle-class life, according to a new report being released Wednesday.

The report, by the National Council on Teacher Quality, a nonprofit group that advocates tougher teacher standards, finds that while teachers in places like Atlanta, Pittsburgh and Columbus, Ohio, can reach a high salary benchmark relatively early in their careers, teachers in New York City, San Francisco and Fairfax County, Va., must work more than three decades to hit comparable salary levels, when adjusted for the cost of living in the cities.

And over a career, teachers in Pittsburgh, the District of Columbia, Columbus and Atlanta are the highest-earning educators while teachers in San Francisco, Hawaii and Newark are the lowest.

In discussions of teacher pay, people “tend to look at the starting salary and they tend to look at the ending salary,” said Kate Walsh, president of the council. “And there’s very little attention to lifetime earnings.” If school districts want teachers to commit to the profession, she said, they need to make sure that teachers can reach middle-class earnings early enough in their careers.