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by yummyfajitas 5615 days ago
What proportion of those jobs are below minimum wage post-doc positions?

Probably not very many. Typical postdoc pay is $40-60k/year depending on where the job is located ($40k in Urbana-Champaigne, $60k NYC or Chicago).

That's about 2-4x lower than what the postdoc could get in the outside world, but it's a far cry from minimum wage.
4 comments
ylem 5615 days ago
I'll echo that that depends very much on funding source. For some university postdocs, it is around $35K, for NIH postdocs, it's less than $50K. Given that the typical postdoc has done a PhD for 5-7 years and many people do two postdocs, it is something to consider. For example, the typical biologist gets her first from NIH at 42....Then, there are those that don't find employment using their science skills, but percolate into other industries (consulting, finance, etc.). I think it's a great lifestyle for those that succeed, but it is extremely competitive--finding faculty positions has also gotten harder due to contracted state funding of universities...
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timr 5615 days ago
"Typical postdoc pay is $40-60k/year depending on where the job is located ($40k in Urbana-Champaigne, $60k NYC or Chicago)."

I say thee "Ha!", sir. The offers I was getting for post-docs were consistently on or below the low end of that range, even in San Francisco (which ain't cheap).

Probably one of the biggest nudges I had away from academia was the realization that as a post-doc, I'd have a lower standard of living than I did as a graduate student. It didn't seem like a smart trend to follow.

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yummyfajitas 5615 days ago
Wow, I guess my experience (in applied math/computational science) was atypical. I didn't get a single offer below $45k, and the only person I know who took less than that was working in New Zealand.

I guess applied math is the place to be if you want to stay in academia.

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timr 5615 days ago
it probably helps to work in an area with "applied" in the name. ;-)
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stevenbedrick 5615 days ago
It also varies widely by funding agency. NIH-funded postdocs are paid abysmally small amounts; DARPA or industrially-funded postdocs can pay quite a bit more reasonably.
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iuygtfrikuj 5615 days ago
$40K for a how many hour week?
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