Though A Change is Gonna Come still resonates to this day (as evidenced by Obama's victory speech), it is clearly a song of its time and circumstances. While touring in North Carolina in 1963, Cooke met with and spoke to students involved in the sit-in movement in the South.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released salary information that indicated the salary levels of elementary, middle school, and secondary teachers across Pennsylvania. As of May 2010, all three earned average salaries between $53,000 per year and $59,000 per year. Substitute teachers earn a prorated salary based on the salaries paid to full-time teachers by a district. The Pennsylvania School Boards Association (PSBA) reported that substitutes in Pennsylvania earned daily wages ranging from $70 to $155 during the 2010-2011 school year.
The inflation-adjusted hourly earnings of the bottom fifth of Pennsylvania workers are lower today than they were in 1979. The current minimum wage of $7.25 per hour has 18 percent less purchasing power than the minimum wage had in 1979.