Such a “simple” solution. Wonder why doing a PhD in the majority of european countries is equal to a poor monthly income. Just pay them more. I guess countries don’t like long term solutions.
Such a “simple” solution. Wonder why doing a PhD in the majority of european countries is equal to a poor monthly income. Just pay them more. I guess countries don’t like long term solutions.
I was curious how much of a gap there is, and landed on about 100k in the US[0] vs 85k[1] USD in France for instance, in average.
That sounds on par with most other professions where the US salary is about a third higher, with a cost of living (health, housing etc) eating most of the difference.
Perhaps I'm also not buying that the US has a fundamentally better system, and not just a dominant position to begin with, with tons of money to invest and raise an army of researchers. Comparing to China could be a more interesting exercise, as it's also flooded with money now and is getting competitive in research.
[0] https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Salaries/Phd-Researcher-Salary
[1] https://publication.enseignementsup-recherche.gouv.fr/eesr/F...
Yeah, no PhDs in the US don't make 100K year. The stipend for an MIT PhD is about 50K a year half of what you're saying. Citing my wife who just finished their phd. MIT also makes it so everyone is paid the same as PhDs even if they bring in their own money like my wife did.
You definitely could make 70K if you worked somewhere and also won a research fellowship, but that is the exception, not the rule. I think it's amazing how much science the US produces, considering how low the pay is. Maybe I'm spoiled in CS, but it's crazy how little people in science get paid, especially considering I think their work is often fundamentally more challenging. Granted is also much more risky and hard to monetize
Your ciation [1] shows the highest number as being approximately 70,000 USD a year, not 85k. That's 15,000 dollars less than you claim. Your [0] citation is not a share-able link and just redirects to the home-page.
In the UK (where I am based so I know the numbers well) a post doc is usually paid around 52,936 dollars a year, or a bit more if in london closer to 60,000 dollars a year. US postdocs seem to be somewehre between 60,000-90,000 dollars depending on institution, MIT [2] for example state a minimum of 69,000 and maximum of 90,000 dollars for a post-doc. This lines up well with your claim of a third higher, however the cost of living claim doesn't really check out, especially since tax rates are much higher in european countries than the US.
If we take your numbers for example with 100k usd, after federal taxes and NY state taxes (the highest I believe) you're looking at close to a 25% marginal tax rate so a take-home of 75,000 USD. In France on 85000 USD you would have a marginal tax rate of 38% for a take home of 52,700 USD. This is closer to a 43% difference not 33%, and does not include the fact that this is not disposable income. For instance my annual pay recently doubled, but my disposable income after council tax/bills/food/transport increased by about 900%, far above the 200% increase. Thus a 33% pay increase would be life-changing, not just some minor increase. (and the cost of living is really not that much higher in the US anyway, since VAT at 20% in europe is much higher than sales tax in most states, and health-care is included in many US jobs of the type we are talking about here, rent is the only thing largely more expensive in the US, but you guys actually have incredibly cheap property when normalised by size. In the us you are looking at a median of 2,500 USD per square meter for houses and somewhere around 5,000 for an apatment, whilst in france it is somewhere around 6750 (couldn't find a breakdown per type)).
[2]: https://postdocs.mit.edu/postdoctoral-position/postdoctoral-...
Sorry, I must have added the extra bonuses on top of the gross salary that already included them. The 5 210€ figure indeed matches 70k USD.
The first link was ZipRecruiter survey with two peaks at 54k and 150k, leading to the average of 100k.
On the cost of living, I see your point, and sure a straight 33% increase is nothing to sneeze at. The actual impact is more complicated depending on the personal situation, I'm not in the US so I was under the impression there's a lot more costs, especially with a family for instance, where EU countries tend to be costly for singles but easier to deal with with kids. But it also comes down to life style, and researchers might benefit as much of the social perks in general (overall I'm mostly in agreement)