I was at one of the local rallies. I think the organizers also know that this event alone won’t be effective & is only the beginning; there will be more to come. A lot more if (and most likely, when) the administration doesn’t comply with the demands.

Fun fact… My local rally literally featured a startup founder who scaled their company & attracted investors using NIH funding as seed money, and a community college student from a nearby red state. I would imagine that even the most die-hard traditional conservatives would find such stories inspiring/good use of tax payer money… Science support has traditionally been bipartisan too.

Again, if they don’t comply, more actions would come

They don’t. Let’s just say that I chose the closest vet to where I live for convenience & I just needed someone to issue them travel certificates in a few months, but they are themselves a VC-owned nightmare… I’m moving out of the US in a few months and will likely change their diets anyways. I’m trying to find better alternatives as well

Oh screw me they are definitely paid way more than the postdocs. I’m fairly certain that for biomedical scientists with PhDs, postdocs are the lowest paid profession with this level of qualification…

Like seriously. I think the number that was thrown around for post-PhD scientists in pharma was like $100-150k/yr to begin with. Granted those jobs have their own shortcomings, but still…

So I have a bit of a unique case… I’m a researcher, and academia is kind-of known for hiring people across the world & are very willing to sponsor visas as long as someone has a PhD. I genuinely wouldn’t have been able to find a regular job in EU, and that is not even considering the language barriers… I’d love to know this topic better as well.

Biomedical postdoc in the US. Pay is exactly $61,008/yr. Postdoc means a PhD is required, and I work in Chicago, mind you

There’s actually a bit of a fun fact in this… Postdocs have historically been chronically underpaid. The NIH actually worked with a consultant a year or so back, who suggested NIH to gradually increase postdoc pay to $70k/yr (80k in urban areas). NIH didn’t agree to that, but chose to gradually increase salary over several years

NIH has a recommended minimum salary (https://www.niaid.nih.gov/grants-contracts/salary-cap-stipends) based on years of experience. In theory institutions can pay more… In practice, a lot of them just stick to the bare minimum, some places even low-ball. This is why my salary is exactly $61,008. Last year it would have been $56.5k so… At least it is an improvement