Despite the slump in the economy, the salaries of PhD physicists in the US grew significantly faster than inflation from 2000 to 2002, according to the American Institute of Physics, which biennially polls physicists and other scientists who belong to its 10 member societies.
In 2002, the median salary for PhD survey respondents was $87 000, up 11.5% from 2000. Those working in hospitals and medical services had the highest median salary, $108 000, followed by $104 000 for physicists at federally funded R&D centers. Remaining at the low end of the income spectrum were physicists employed at four-year colleges. Those physicists earned a median nine-month salary of $55 000—up 10% from two years earlier.
Academic physicists who earned their PhD up to five years before the survey and were not in postdoctoral positions reported median salaries for 9- to 10-month university contracts that were 17% higher than people in...
