<p>$3,000 a month? That sounds about right, actually - it may be a little more or less depending on the post-doc (the Robert Wood Johnson post-docs pay $90,000, and the Kellogg post-docs pay $60,000, but they are kind of an anomaly). I think life sciences post-docs actually pay a little bit more, but generally it will be around $40-50K.</p>
<p>However, that’s just a postdoc salary. Hopefully you’ll only work in a postdoc for 2-3 years after you finish your PhD, and then you’ll get a professor position if you want to be a professor. I live in the Northeast and professors here can start out anywhere between $60-80K; it’s a little less in other areas of the country but still more than post-doc pay. And if you go into industry, you can make more. Like someone else said, think about a post-doc like a medical residency/fellowship period. Residents are low-paid relative to physicians.</p>