28 replies to this topic

[Brave Heart]

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!

Edited by Brave Heart, 02 April 2009 - 01:02 PM.

[samita]

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:

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!

[cotchy]

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.

[genehunter]

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.

[Wolverena]

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

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!

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....

[Dr Teeth]

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.

Edited by Dr Teeth, 06 April 2009 - 08:33 AM.

[Brave Heart]

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

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.

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!

[Dr Teeth]

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.

[Brave Heart]

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!

[noelmathur]

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

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.

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.

[Brave Heart]

well, I can tell you what I am offered:

stipend: $41,000 first year at UCSD (the houses or apartment rental are expensive in San Diego!)

I didn't bargain for the stipend, as I am very happy with what they offer.

benefits: FREE health insurance for the whole household (which means I won't need to pay a penny for the health insurance cost, but I do will need to pay for the co-pay and low deductible, etc). Retirement benefits, blah blah...

Does this answer your question? noelmathur

Edited by Brave Heart, 05 June 2009 - 08:54 AM.

[K.B.]

PayScale.com is quite nice website to check salary for different countries, education/degree, area of expertise, years of experience etc. (click on "Research Center" on the bottom menu).

[ascacioc]

I have a question. More like I need help to make some international statistics about the pay of PhD students vs Postdocs. I am a PhD student in Germany at a Max Planck Institute. There were recently discussions in between the PhD community and the general administration about fair pay of the PhD students. The story is like this: in Germany, a PhD student is considered half a Postdoc (as the president of Max Planck Society 'nicely' explained in Spiegel, one of the most read newspapers here), as such he will be paid only half a Postdoc salary. This is when students are on working contracts. So, the brutto salary of a PhD student is 1700 €, after tax one gets like 1200 € a month. A Postdoc gets exactly double the brutto, but after taxes he gets a bit less than 2400€. When on a scholarship, a PhD student (in Max Planck Society) gets 1365 € per month. But from this he must pay health insurance and in the end gets a bit above 1100 €. To make the long story short, the same president of the Max Planck Society stated in Spiegel that a PhD is half a Postdoc all over the world and we, because we rebel against the system should consider that nowhere else is different. However, I hear otherwise from my friends from around the world. But I want overall information for the entire world, if we are to attack the president again. So: how is this around the world. Basically, I need info like this:
PhD student: 1700 €/month (before taxes); 1200 € after taxes when on a working contract
  1365 €/month scholarship
Postdoc: 3400 €/month (before taxes) on a working contract

Thank you in advance for your help.

Andreea

[Trof]

I currently have no information about the salary of a post-doc here, but I can tell you, that depending on the luck with fuding the same Ph.D. student get 560 €/month after taxes ( I was really considering getting a second job like.. "what else can I do instead of biology?, mmm, nothing well enough probably, so.. shop assistant in Lidl?"...) and a year later 1200 €/month after taxes
Situation is rather complicated by taxes, because full-time students up to 26 don't pay them, also full-time students can be funded from certain parts of a grants that are considered a gratuity, which is also not taxed. When I had a break in the studies, that meant my salary went down by 120 €/month, because I had to tax everything I got and the amount didn't change.
Also Ph.D. students in the first 4 years (which is considered to be a normal duration of Ph.D.) get around 240-320 €/month scholarship (not taxed) from university, which is generally the main reason why everyone wants to employ a Ph.D. student. Because they can  pay them only half the salary from their resources.
Of course that in the capital the numbers are bit different, but I rather don't think much about it, after all money is not my important motivation.
If the question was also about if by working on contract you have a fixed salary, then no. Usually you got a one-yer contract each year, and the salary depends on the actual grant funding available. You never know what will be next year.

[ascacioc]

In light of what you are saying about Czech Republic, we at Max Planck are spoiled brats who complain But seriously now, my question is more the ratio of payment of PhD vs Postdoc. For us is not a problem of how much money, it is a question of a PhD is half a Postdoc, which is not true, in my opinion. I mean, on average they do not produce more articles and they do not work longer (it is almost 1 AM here and I am in the lab; the only other people here are other 2 PhD students, just saying...)

And, for the answers I need also the country for which the info is valid.