Postdocs need raises. But who will foot the bill?

Postdocs—the Ph.D.s who do much of the labor of science—are notoriously underpaid. But the problem has intensified over the past year as postdocs struggle to get by amid soaring inflation and professors report problems recruiting Ph.D. graduates to fill positions. Several institutions and states have recently implemented policies to increase their pay. But these policies haven’t always come with an increase in funding, leaving lab leaders wondering how to cover rising staff costs and what the downstream effects will be. “I think a lot of faculty feel extremely trapped,” one professor says. “This is much needed change; postdocs are simply not paid enough,” says Kelly Stevens, an associate professor of bioengineering at the University of Washington, Seattle. In that state, a law went into effect this month stipulating that organizations with 51 or more employees must pay salaried employees at least $65,478 per year; the National Institutes of Health (NIH) starting postdoc salary, which many institutions use as a baseline to set their postdoc pay, is $54,840. But the new mandate puts lab leaders in a tough position, Stevens adds, because federal research grants haven’t kept up with inflation and necessities such as lab supplies are also becoming pricier. “The money has to come from somewhere,” she says. The push to raise pay is especially strong in high cost of living areas. In November 2022, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MI...
Source: ScienceNOW - Category: Science Source Type: news