Postdocs supported by National Institutes of Health training grants will soon see their funding increase by about 25 percent, but even NIH officials agree that the boost alone won't fix a program that has set stagnant stipends for years.
In 1996, new postdocs received $20,292 under NIH's National Research Service Awards (NRSA), an amount that increased $708 for the 1998 fiscal year. The new entry-level salary of $26,256 for the 1999 fiscal year--and the new senior level of $41,268, up from $33,012--will provide a fairer wage, but it still pays young Ph.D. scientists less than they are worth, argues Michael S. Teitlebaum of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation in New York. "It's not a lot of money," Teitlebaum says of the new first-year amount. Also, U.S.-born postdocs need to contend with a potential glut of biologists that could result from a recent move to nearly double the number of H1-B ...
