I'm aware that some people find this question rude, or an answer with numbers in it gauche, but those people can just ignore me. Inspired by Heather (http://network.nature.com/people...) and perennially annoyed by the ridiculously inflated numbers at places like salary.com, I want to know how much money real people actually get paid to do science. (If enough people respond we can factor in exchange rates and cost-of-living comparisons.) - Bill Hooker

I make USD 2184/month after tax. I'm on my third postdoc in my tenth year post-PhD. (Shoot me. Seriously, just shoot me.) - Bill Hooker

Just under 2k EUR. That's after tax, health, unemployment and retirement deducted. 8 years post PhD - Björn Brembs

AUD 3522/month after deductions. Also 10 years post-PhD and technically 5th postdoc, I think. I'll stand behind Bill so you can use one bullet :) - Neil Saunders

I'm not prepared to post my salary, but contributed it to the bioinformatics career survey anonymously. I'm on my 4th position 'post PhD', which was awarded in 2000. I'm a little shocked at what people are earning, I wonder if moving often is the better strategy here? Or is there just a general salary discrepancy between the USA, Australia and the UK? Whichever way, I suspect some people in this thread need a payrise.. - Daniel Swan

The AAUP posts annual salaries of people in academia. You might want to check it out. http://www.aaup.org/AAUP... - Donnie Berkholz

Christ Bill, get a 4th postdoc! USD $2444 after taxes as a masters level research technician. - Kevin Z

I was doing a ph.d on a Marie Curie FP7 project ca 1700Euro/month in Spain. - Anders Norgaard

I make around 3200 CDN$ a month after all deductions. I was a Post-Doc until June, now working as a Bioinformatician for a company and 2 institutes. In December it is the 6th anniversary of my PhD. - Paulo Nuin

Ontario has salary disclosure regulations that apply to universities. They must disclose the salary of anyone making more than 100K: http://www.fin.gov.on.ca/english... - John Dupuis

~ $4700/mo, 3 years post PhD (My salary is public information anyway) - Rajarshi Guha

Just for comparison, postdocs in my lab make the NIH standard, see http://postdocs.stanford.edu/handboo... - Maureen

I won't say how much I am making now, but when I changed jobs for the first time I was making $75K/year (pre-tax) as an algorithm developer/scientific programmer. That was PhD + 3 ... and about 5 years ago - Deepak Singh

About $17000 USD a year ($1400 per month) after taxes as a Graduate Research Assistant. As side notes: 1) I'm impressed with the mature frankness here. 2) Could we collect this information in a more systematic manner? - Chris Lasher

The SigmaXi postdoc survey (http://postdoc.sigmaxi.org/results) gathered data from ~7,600 postdocs at >40 institutions; you can get the data, but from their highlights: median salary in 1995 = $28,000 ($34,700 in 2004 dollars) and median salary in 2004 = $38,000. That's pre-tax, so I figure about $2100/mo after deductions. - Bill Hooker

Thanks to Daniel for reminding me, I took a quick look at the bioinfo survey data: http://www.sennoma.net/main... - Bill Hooker

Slightly complicated by a range of factors but if I take my pro-rata (i.e. full time) salary from STFC it ends up at ~£36k after all non-voluntary reductions (that does however include a pretty generous pension contribution). Currently getting on for 9 years post PhD. - Cameron Neylon

around 33 000 USD/year, 4th year of postdoc, 43 000 before taxes and insurance - Alexey

In local currency, I make roughly 20% of my mortgage (and sadly 25% of the value of my house) - Ian Holmes

Au$4200/mo after tax and deductions. Works out at £36k *gross* p/a. I'm... hell, 14 years post-doctorate. - Richard P Grant

We're getting on for enough responses here to start thinking about comparisons... for instance, my USD2184/mo is about AUD3164/mo, and my impression is that one local dollar buys you about the same in Aus as in the US. (Meaning, filthy capitalist RPG is earning 33% more than poor impoverished me.) But is my impression correct -- and how would one test it? Burgernomics (http://www.economist.com/finance...) perhaps? - Bill Hooker

It's funny—we're paying quite a bit more in rent than we did in Cambridge, but seem to be saving more. Standard groceries are a little cheaper (I compared when I was in the UK in August). They seemed cheaper in the US than here when I was over _there_ in June. Petrol is currently running about $1.50/litre which (today) is US$1.24, or US$4.69/gallon (US). I spend Au$28/week on train fares (commuting), which is pretty good I think, but I'd rather pay a bit more and have something more like the London Tube... - Richard P Grant

Once you factor my wife's salary into the equation, a third of our income goes on rent. Money bores me actually--I had to look up my payslip to find out what I earn. Had no idea. - Richard P Grant

I do earn about €3000/month after taxes as a medical doctor in a university hospital. And living in Hanover, Germany is very affordable. - Martin Fenner

I was on a $2100/mo stipend during graduate school, haven't done a post-doc. New Orleans was a very affordable city if you don't own property. ;-) Good food and music are very accessible, even to impoverished grad students. San Diego, not so much. I reckon my income has quadrupled and my standard of living has maybe doubled. - Mr. Gunn

My monthly income varies from ca. $500 to $1500 a month. Only $500 of it comes from a grant, and therefore can be considered as a stable income. I don't get any salary and have no plans to apply for a job, so defending PhD will not change anything. BTW, petrol here is ca. $2/liter, now after oil prices went down, but I have around two meters from bed to my work desk :). - Pawel Szczesny

Well, as I said, 9 years post-PhD, I'm at a comfortable 1850 euros or so a month after tax. We probably spend more on groceries (ca 600 euro/month) and gas (1.40 euros/litre) than many of you, but having a spouse with a different salary source makes it all possible. They've got it bad in Italy (1200-1700 euros/mo cf http://network.nature.com/people...). - Heather

Since I am still in the midst of my education I can only talk about an internship I did at a certain company from Wisconsin that develops commercial bioinformatics applications. I got around $1900 before tax (emphasis on internship). - Daniel Jurczak

http://www.phdcomics.com/comics... - laura