There is very little information available on how much postdocs are actually paid in the U.S., beyond data on institutional salary policies gathered by the National Postdoctoral Association. Following on from recent discussions about postdoc salaries changing as a result of proposed updates to U.S. Federal labor law, we have gathered data from a selection of institutions through Freedom of Information Requests, asking only for titles and salaries of postdocs, to see if we can identify actual postdoctoral salaries. The aggregate data, and more information, can be found at out “Investigating Postdoc Salaries” Resource. Every day, we will be releasing a discussion of each individual institution or system from which we received data. Today: Florida State University.

 

Cost for FOIA Request: $0

Additional notes: None

 

All postdocs at Florida State University in our dataset are paid above the proposed 2016 FLSA minimum threshold. FSU in fact made a strong commitment after the injunction to continuing raising the minimum salary for postdocs to $47,658. The institution provided bridge funding to support salary increases. The institution appears to be a very strong example of institutional commitment to raising postdoc salaries.

 

There is good transparency about postdocs at FSU on their website, and we have heard that this was largely due to an effort to push for more transparency by the postdoctoral association.