PhD and Postdoc salary? - are the salaries reasonable? (Apr/02/2009 )

I recently got a couple of postdoc offers from different locations.

One offer is from a lab in Philadelphia, and they offer $36,000/year (before tax)

The other one is from Nashville, Tennessee. They offer $34,000/year (before Tax).

Both offers are in the biomedical sciences field.

I know both offers are low in terms of the amount of money $$$. I think neither meets NIH standard for a fresh postdoc with 0 year of experience. My question here is:

What amount of salary would be appropriate (NIH minimum standard) for both places? I would like to bargain with the PIs if I know the reasonable amounts. I have family with a little kid.

By the way, how to bargain in an appropriate way?

Thanks!

I will also appreciate if some one let me know the post doc salary in germany and netherland.

Brave Heart on Apr 2 2009, 01:49 PM said:

The average Post Doc in Ireland pay's around 40,000 euro per year which is about 54,000 US dollars give or take a thousand or so per year

I know its not germany or netherlands but we are all using Euro so might be good to compare.

I'm not a post doc myself by my supervisor is and she is getting somehwere around this salary.

If there is no difference in terms of academic, take the Vanderbilt postdoc offer. The school is very good. The cost of living is much lower in TN than in PA in general. Nashville is a city that is big enough to live. On top of that you dont have to pay your income tax (which is ~3% in PA) in the State of Tennessee.

Brave Heart on Apr 2 2009, 04:49 PM said:

What is the NIH standard?
Those numbers can become relative when you compare it to a certain living standard. For example, I imagine that it might be very difficult to live around the NIH with standard NIH post-doc salary because it is a very expensive area in regards to housing and costs. DC isn't much better....and there is the compute too. So one might get a higher salary, but then one also has more costs for living....

NIH is currently paying $42,000/year for a postdoctoral fellow with 0 years experience, but Bethesda and D.C. are by far more expensive than Philadelphia or Nashville. So, keep in mind that the NIH scale is different for on campus NIH employees and those in other cities, so $36K is a reasonable offer. I've never been to Nashville, but my recommendation if you take the Philly job would be to live in a suburb in PA or NJ in an apartment and commute into the city via the R5 or high speed line. You can get a nice place in a safe town this way. Don't live in Philadelphia with a family for 36K or you will need to be in a bad area and you will be subject to the Philadelphia city wage tax in addition to the PA income tax and federal taxes. Also, bargaining for your salary won't usually get you very far as postdoc salaries are often already described in a particular grant for each PI and are not so flexible.

Dr Teeth on Apr 6 2009, 08:30 AM said:

Actually, Vanderbilt is much better than the school in philadelphia that offered me a postdoc position. I tend to take the Vanderbilt offer. If I want to bargain with the future boss, what would be the appropriate way? Just ask him/her to match NIH minimum standard (which is about $36900?)? I got family with a baby on the way though....

thanks!

Some more advice: the school's reputation is not important at all, especially for a postdoc situation. The most important factors are your productivity (of course) but also the reputation of your PI. Once you leave the postdoc, if you can say you worked for so-and-so, whom people may know, it is much better than I worked at so-and-so university. For security, you should also consider the funding record of each PI (you can check this out for yourself on the NIH website to ensure you are not being misled). Also consider the type of grant will be covering your work (R01, etc)? When does this grant money expire? How long will you be expected to remain there? What is the publication record for each PI? How many people do they have in the lab? How many postdocs vs students? How often do people publish when they are there?
Also, since you have a family on the way, I hope you are also considering health insurance coverage. Many postdoc positions do not come with funded health insurance, and instead these fees will need to come out of pocket, further lowing your income. A position at a medical school or NIH, however, will typically have health insurance provided.

Find a PI with an extensive publication record, who is well known in his/her field, who has funding for the next 4-5 years and who is not just running a data factory. Whichever situation (Nashville or Philly) best meets these demands, take that one. If neither, keep looking.

Finally, in regards to your other questions, go ahead and ask the PI to meet the NIH off-campus minimum, but again the likelihood that he will raise the amount in question is low, especially when there are a plethora of postdocs out there, some of whom will work for the low pay.

I would like to report back to everyone who helped me on this board: I've finally found a lab in Los Angeles that works on proteomics which I am very passionate about. The stipend they offer is good.

I'll bring my wife to relocate to LA soon in this summer.

Good luck to everybody!

Brave Heart on May 22 2009, 06:19 PM said:

Great mate. Congratulations. Now I know you should not be asking salary of a man but since this thread was started with salary issue, could you please state salary and benefits you get. It will help future to be post-docs.