Philosophers' Salaries

**UPDATED--see below

In the comments section under my recent post on the pleasures and perils of working in a large department, one of our readers, Eugene, asked the following question:

What is the typical philosopher's salary like?

I ask that you start a post on this topic because I've heard a number of conflicting things about what to expect with respect to the salary of philosophers in different kinds of departments and at different stages of their careers.

Because this blog is intended to be a helpful place for early-career philosophers, and my experience has been that grad students tend to know very little about this type of stuff (I hardly knew what kind of salary to expect myself when I was first hired!), I thought it would be good to have a post dedicated to the issue. It is an issue that grad students and other early-career philosophers could use more information about.

Here, then, is what I would like to do. I would like to ask people to report in the comments section, in as evenhanded of a way as possible, what they know about salaries at different levels (i.e. adjunct positions, post-docs, VAPs, and TT positions) in different places (i.e. different states, different nations, etc.). Please do not speculate. Only report things you know.

Finally, because as Eugene rightly points out, the subject of money is always a bit of a sensitive one, I would like to ask that everyone address the issue in as safe and supportive of a way as possible (in line with this blog's mission). This is not a place to have a salary "pissing contest", etc. If you are at all worried that you may come off as bragging, feel free to comment anonymously. The point of this thread is not to know "who makes what." It is merely to give our readers factual knowledge of what philosophers' salaries are like.

With that said, I will not report my own salary here non-anonymously. I *will* report my salary experiences below, anonymously,  after other people have posted. What I do feel comfortable saying is this. My experience in two VAP positions is that their salaries do not depart substantially from TT jobs. 

UPDATE: One thing that I forgot to mention is that I've heard that institutions can differ dramatically in terms of how often they give raises, and what those raises are like. I've heard, in particular, of some state schools not giving faculty any raises at all for several years. Other institutions, however, give faculty raises (often based on judgments of teaching, research, and service merit) every single year.  Thus, two jobs with a similar starting salary can end up with quite different salaries down the road. As a first gloss, my impression is that you can expect raises far less often at state schools (due to recent budget cuts) than at private ones. Because this is a very important detail, I would like to encourage people who post in the comments section to also share what the situation is with raises at their institutions.

Comments

[anonymous associate]

My initial tt job, at a big state research university, was about $43K, which is more like $51K today. I'm now tenured and have changed institutions once, and my pay is more like $75K. Perhaps it is relevant to mention also factors like: the school in question has a decent PhD program, and my load is 2/2. We also get a couple thousand dollars per year in research/travel funds.

[Anonymous1]

You can find the salaries of philosophers who work in either the California State University system or the University of California system online if you type in their names at this website:

http://www.sacbee.com/statepay/

[Ted Shear]

The UC System publishes their employee salaries here: http://ucpay.globl.org/

Thought this might be a useful resource for people looking into this sort of thing.

[Marcus Arvan]

So...after a few quick searches of TT jobs in the Cal State/UC systems, it looks to my eyes as though *tenure-track* assistant profs make anywhere between $50K-88K per year.

(Note: the high end here is for individuals in Leiterific programs in expensive-to-live places).

[Anonymous2]

The starting salary for an assistant prof. at my R1 is 55k. This is in the Southeast US.

[Dean Goorden]

As an adjunct in Ontario I received $6600 CAD / course. The average for the province is approx. $7,500 CAD/course. For Asssit. Prof at the same university its $65k. Other university's in the province would be about the same +/- $5-10k (depending on the city). Canada makes it easy to find salaries since everything is unionized, therefore they are structured min/max for each level and publicly available.

As for Australia, if I remember correctly, Level A (Assistant Lecturer) is approx. $45k AUD. Most people in my former departments were Level B/C (Lecturer/Senior Lecturer) and is around $60k/$75k AUD. This is all nation wide salaries (at least, the minimums).

I assume salaries in USA would be harder to figure out since there are no unions (or few?).

[Anonymous in Dixie]

I work at a mid-tier state school in the southeastern United States. There is no graduate program in philosophy here. My starting salary a few years ago was just under USD$50,000. I have been here for several years now and have been lucky to receive very good (~5%) raises each year.

[Anonymous]

I just started as an adjunct at a California CC and the starting salary is $55/hr, which works out to about $2500 per course per semester.

[euro-anonymous]

In research institutes in continental Europe (Austria-Germany-Italy are the countries I know of first hand) a senior post-doc (i.e., one having at least two years of experience since the achievment of his/her Phd) would typically earn about 30k/year and a junior post-doc 25k/year. Salary is raised once you have achieved your "habilitation"/venia docendi. Single courses are payed around 1,5k/semester for 2 weekly hours (usually meaning 45'+45' at once).
One should add on top of that the fact that the social state assures one not to worry about extra expenses (school for the children, medical expenses, having to buy a car and the like), so that a direct comparison is made more difficult.

[Anonymous]

Great idea for a post!

I am starting a TT job at a state school in the midwest without a grad program in the fall. It's in a small college town with a very low cost of living. I'll be making 50K, which involved a (very small) negotiated raise. Sadly, not sure what the situation for later raises is.

[Anonymous3]

Starting salary for a TT at my large mid-western state university (no grad program) is $50k, VAPs at $45k. Don't know what the raise increments/frequency looks like, but there are performance-based increments as well as cost-of-living raises.

In the UK, the pay brackets are more or less uniform. Lecturers (equiv. to US Ass. Prof.) start on about £35k, and Post-Docs/RFs can be paid as little as £27k. Typically, raises are biannual cost-of-living, although with recent austerity cuts that has not occurred for several years.

[anon]

Four years ago, I took a lecturer position at a SLAC for $40,000. A year later I moved on to a tt gig at $58,000, and this past year moved to a tt position paying $85,000.

[Anon]

I'm an adjunct at a community college in Florida and I make $2400 a class.

[anon]

These are the starting salaries from offers I've received:

Strong Ph.D.-granting program at otherwise weak state school: $47K

Nationally-recognized SLAC: $57K

Ivy League asst prof at Ph.D-granting program: $70K

Ranked public Ph.D.-granting program: $68K

TT-equivalent at Ph.D.-granting Australian university: $92K AUD (I don't recall what specific level the job was.)

Business school at prestigious private school with cross appt in ranked ph.d.-granting program: Base salary of $126K + 2/9ths salary research grant each summer. I took this gig over others because I wanted the money. After 2 years, my base salary is $150K, with total salary (including compensation for 1 off-load exec MBA course) over $200K.

[anon]

When I was on the market a couple years ago and had campus visits for TT jobs at two schools in the midwest - one a state university and the other a SLAC, the starting salaries would have been 43k and 47k respectively (9 month contracts). I am now TT at a community college and started at 56k and am currently making 58k (10 and a half month contract).

[Anonymous]

I've been involved with three different kinds of adjunct jobs in the northeast over the last couple of years:
- A private R1 with a graduate program that pays $7000 per course for people with degrees, $6000 for ABD
- A SLAC that pays $4000 per course
- A smaller state school with 2- and 4-year degrees that pays $2300 per course

[Anonymous4]

I have a VAP at a private SLAC in the Southeastern US, starting salary $57K + annual merit raises between 2-4%.

[Rob Gressis]

Regarding raises:

I started a TT position at Cal State, Northridge in August 2008.

I have not received any cost of living increases since I've been teaching.

When I become an associate professor, I will receive a 7.5% raise.

From what I know, the last time we got a cost-of-living increase was 2007.

I think that, in 2012, our union agreed to a four-year-no-raises contract. So, I don't imagine we'll receive a cost of living increase until at least 2017, if then.

[anon]

I'm the anonymous post from 06/25/2013 at 07:30 AM.

It's worth mentioning the disparity in research funds, too. I've had job offers with research budgets as low as $1500/year to as high as $7500/year at my current gig (TT asst prof).

[Rachel]

Large liberal arts college in southern US: 56.5k (no regular cost of living or merit pay increases, unfortunately). 1.5k research funds/yr though.

Canadian MA-level grad program 74k with regular cost of living and merit pay increases.

Large undergrad state institution in a small college town: 51k.

You really have to take into consideration cost of living in different areas. 74k in a major Canadian city won't go as far as the 56k in a smaller US city.

[Postdoc]

My first job (a postdoc in Scandinavia) pays $80,000/year with an additional research/travel budget of $8,000 or so.

[Marcus Arvan]

Holy cow! I need to move to Scandinavia... :)

[Michael]

I thought about going to grad school to do philosophy. I decided it just wasn't worth saying goodbye to x yrs of my life and a decent paying job. Where would we be if these roles were more valuable in our society? Guess I'll stick to helping corps sell useless crap to ppl.

[StJohnny]

I am a philosophy grad-school drop out. For various reasons, I decided it just wasn't worth continuing it. Having said that, those who do well in philosophy can do relatively well elsewhere. In terms of tenure and/or salary, I achieved in 3-5 years what a tenured professor would have achieved after 20 years in academics.