This year's Salary Survey saw drops in salaries in many fields, some with dips as large as $20,000 (ecology) and $28,000 (virology) but bioinformatics, biophysics, biotechnology, and neuroscienc posted salary increases.
It is never easy to determine why some specialities saw salaries rise and others saw salaries cut, but Mark Musen, head of the Stanford Center for Biomedical Informatics Research at Stanford University commented, "I've noticed this year that start-up packages for new faculty members in biomedical informatics have been enormously generous because the competition is so intense."
Likewise there may be too many graduates in soft fields like ecology.
Many institutions, reliant on a strategy of simply shifting higher costs to parents of students, have been hit by the financial crisis but it is made worse when tenured scientists near the end of their careers with contracted salaries decide to continue working. "There's an incentive to keep a salary coming in," says James Bassingthwaighte, bioengineer at the University of Washington in Seattle, "especially when my retired friends express concerns that their income shrivels with the market downturns."
Feedback shows that it is not only the cost of living in harsh economic times that has risen, but the cost of doing science has increased with the increases in science funding - lab equipment companies, like universities, know they can increase prices because taxpayers fund the studies and science, like hospitals, is one of few businesses where competition drives prices up, because if Lab A has a device than Lab B must get it also if they want to be cutting edge at proposal time. As Mary Dickinson of Baylor College of Medicine commented: "Now instead of one to two grants to run a modest-size lab, people need three of four to keep pace."
Almost all levels in the life sciences are feeling the strain of the current financial situation, but the one demographic group that always feels it – postdoctoral fellows - probably notice it the least, because little has changed. Currently, postdocs receiving federal awards make between $37,740 to $52,068 a year, depending on a fellow's level of experience. This may be sufficient to cope with the cost of living, but many still feel the pinch. It's no surprise that postdocs have always led in creative coping mechanisms financially.
Full results, further statistics and interactive charts can be found at www.the-scientist.com/salarysurvey and in the November print issue.