Postdoctoral compensation policy
April 19, 2010
I can’t make this a poll because there are simply too many options and subtleties.
The question, Dear Reader, is would you please relate how postdocs are compensated, or have been compensated, in institutions/labs/situations of your experience.
A comment from me on a prior thread lays out the NIH starting pay for postdocs on NRSA awards.
and just because…i thought I’d look up the numbers my memory being what it isn’t and all… all are starting postdocs with 0 yrs prior postdoc experience.
FY97, $20, 292
http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/not96-266.html
FY98, $21,000
http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/not98-001.html
FY99 $26,296
http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/not98-161.html
fy00, $26,916
http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-00-008.html
FY01, $28,260
http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/Notice-files/NOT-OD-01-011.html
FY02, $31,092
http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/not-od-02-028.html
FY03, $34,200
http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-03-036.html
I have always stuck to the NIH NRSA scale when setting my postdoctoral trainees’ salaries. The reason* I do so is that it seems to me to be the only fair way, assuming that one’s University does not set a higher default scale, to deal with a mixed bag of NIH fellows and paid-from-grant people.
I do not supplement above the payscale. Or I have not yet done so. Within my own group, the grants fluctuate over time. There are times when I could “easily afford” a few extra thousand and times when I could not. Starting to pick and choose when/who to supplement seems to me to lead to bias. You supplement person A now but three years down the road you can’t afford it for the person B- aha, BIAS! You are discriminating because you really could afford it, technically, it would just mean a bigger hit to the research program. Sticky. Also sticky is the issue of postdocs within the department being paid more / less than the person sitting next to them just because the PI is relatively flusher at that moment in time. I’m willing to use the NRSA scale as an excuse to pay my postdocs more than the PI next door if she chooses to pay less. Not so willing to tilt departmental equity “just because”.
So have at it. What were / are you paid as a postdoc? If a PI, what practices have you adopted and why?
__
*To my recollection I was always paid a salary consistent with the existing NRSA payscale as a postdoc. This may contribute to my viewpoint as well.
The UK has now made the 4-MMC (Meow-Meow, mephedrone) compound illegal to possess as of April 16, 2010. It will be interesting to see what pops up next as the latest waiting-to-be-criminalized recreational drug.
Apparently MDAI (5,6-Methylenedioxy-2-aminoindane; Wikipedia) is a hot prospect in the UK drug user stakes. I dunno, the go-to user forum thread on MDAI doesn’t make it look all that promising but who knows. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
Legal sourcing has a way of trumping the actual quality of the high, as we’ve seen with mephedrone in the UK in the past year. My read on the user descriptions (such as they are) sure doesn’t make it seem as if mephedrone is as fun as MDMA. The primary draw seems to be that it was a reasonably good high but more importantly it was legal and available. Hmm, now where are those cannabis fans who claim that legality and ready availability of cannabis has nothing to do with use patterns?
The UK has now made the 4-MMC (Meow-Meow, mephedrone) compound illegal to possess as of April 16, 2010. It will be interesting to see what pops up next as the latest waiting-to-be-criminalized recreational drug.
Apparently MDAI (5,6-Methylenedioxy-2-aminoindane; Wikipedia) is a hot prospect in the UK drug user stakes. I dunno, the go-to user forum thread on MDAI doesn’t make it look all that promising but who knows. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
Legal sourcing has a way of trumping the actual quality of the high, as we’ve seen with mephedrone in the UK in the past year. My read on the user descriptions (such as they are) sure doesn’t make it seem as if mephedrone is as fun as MDMA. The primary draw seems to be that it was a reasonably good high but more importantly it was legal and available. Hmm, now where are those cannabis fans who claim that legality and ready availability of cannabis has nothing to do with use patterns?
DrugMonkey 