> Don't get me wrong, we are mostly on the same page w.r.t. salaries and what not. That's fair. I do think managers have responsibility to their direct report

> Don't get me wrong, we are mostly on the same page w.r.t. salaries and what not. That's fair. I do think managers have responsibility to their direct reports. The postdoc situation in th US isn't going to change as long as faculty and post-docs continue producing. So, quite seriously, the solution is for faculty and post-docs to collectively say "we can't get work done under these conditions". Otherwise things will just get worse. > EDIT: 401k is 5% mandatory contribution, with 8.5% match by the university. This is generous (but also fairly uncommon for post-docs). Good to hear that your uni provides retirement benefits. > My comment about school teachers was mostly about the salary making them "broke". Lots of people live just fine on that ($50k is about $25/hour full time. Median earnings in the us is around $42k last I looked). Tech is an anomaly. The huge difference is that post-docs are transitory and require uprooting one's life. $50K with the knowledge that you can buy a starter home is very different from $50K and knowing that you cannot buy anything because you will likely move in 2 years. This also has real human cost. See articles like this: https://www.timeshighereducation.com/postdocs-dilemma-when-give-romance-and-file-divorce https://www.timeshighereducation.com/postdocs-dilemma-when-g...