Truth

[Seriously Serious]

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Perhaps a realistic question for all of us: would you still pursue/work in pharmacy if the average salary/your salary was cut 20-30%? If so, how about 40%?

 

[Charcoales]

No.

 

[steveysmith54]

What are my other options? Are you taking about right now? I guess 30-40 percent is better than nothing, so yes

 

[Seriously Serious]

What are my other options? Are you taking about right now? I guess 30-40 percent is better than nothing, so yes

Any interpretation is welcome, just looking to gauge dedication to the profession without a bigger paycheck. With schools still opening, competition growing stronger each year, competitive salaries may become the norm in the coming decade.

 

[zelman]

I would take a massive paycut if the money was invested into staffing. Go from 1-2 RPh at a time to 2-4 RPh and stress is practically gone.

 

[PharmtoCS]

No. By taking a 30-40% pay cut and having to pay the same amount toward loans you would be practically making poverty wages. Even the current $120-130k (assuming you can find FT employment) is nowhere as good as it appears when you factor in taxes and student loans. You can do better in terms of take-home pay and work conditions in an alternative profession, i.e. computer programming or engineering.

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[awval999]

Perhaps a realistic question for all of us: would you still pursue/work in pharmacy if the average salary/your salary was cut 20-30%? If so, how about 40%?

Why don't you google the economic theory of "sticky wages".

Our salaries will never be cut 40% in nominal terms.

 

[6GodPharm]

Cut by 30-40% lol you might as well become a tech. Answer is No No No.

 

[owlegrad]

Cut by 30-40% lol you might as well become a tech. Answer is No No No.

Obviously it depends on the place but my techs make about 80% less than me. So no, getting cut 40% would not leave me at tech wages.

 

[gwarm01]

20% and I would keep working but look into a trade or night school. 40%.. whew.. might have to fake my death and move to China.

 

[6GodPharm]

Obviously it depends on the place but my techs make about 80% less than me. So no, getting cut 40% would not leave me at tech wages.

With a 200k loan it's pretty damn close.

 

[PolarPop]

With a 200k loan it's pretty damn close.

No it's not. Even if the 200k was all private loans and income based repayment wasn't an option it would still not be close.

 

[moose10]

I enjoy the work and daily interactions with a wide range of people you see in pharmacy. I would continue to do the work for lower pay if I was financially secure, which at this point I am not close to.

I recently made some friends in the sales world (tech hardware, medical devices) who are clearing 180k-200k after commissions with a four year bachelors under the belt. Sure the job has some long hours but those hours can be more flexible, and they have a good base pay so if there is a bad year they won't starve. Now I will have to ask myself if salaries do trend lower or I am forced to take a paycut, should I just start hawking medical equipment instead of medicine?

 

[confettiflyer]

If I hopped on a plane to the east coast, I would face an immediate 30+% hourly rate reduction. I penciled it out and the math still works as my mortgage and income based repayments would ratchet down.

But a 30% reduction in situ? I would take a second job to make up the difference (50hrs a week) or deeply consider my alternative plan b to make money and drop to part time.

That's my clean hypothetical answer, but you have to consider this in the broader macroeconomic context. If my salary dropped 30%, what realistically happened to everyone else?


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[Abby Atwood]

Student loans are the tricky thing. I think it would be hard to pay things back if I make less than 40K a year. I would say that hard line, I wouldn't be willing to make less than 35K with student loans or 22K without them. A 40% pay cut would be fine. (I don't have dependents, so special circumstances for me)

 

[wagrxm2000]

None of these new pharmacists would but us older pharmacists didn't do it for the money.

The question is pointless though. If I said teachers now make 6 figures, everyone would be a teacher.

 

[confettiflyer]

The question is pointless though. If I said teachers now make 6 figures, everyone would be a teacher.

In a heart beat.


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[npage148]

30% yeah. I'd still be over 100k and pharmacy (despite our bitching) is a pretty easy paycheck. Approaching 50% difference I'd be in a different job. There are lots of 70k jobs around, many id be happy doing instead and at that rate you lose many pluses of a job you may not love (like having your SO not have to work) This is assuming not a pay cut but rather if wages were the the cut rate when getting in

And again, enough whining about money being too tight on 120k/year

 

[CynicalIntern]

There's a couple ways to look at it. I've taken plenty of pay cuts in my life, I regret none of them.

Would I stay with Walgreens or CVS if they dropped my salary by 30%? Absolutely not. Would I go from 130K at CVS to 90K at a low-stress, 9-5 indy? Absolutely.

 

[CetiAlphaFive]

LOL at all these people who have never actually worked a day of hard work in their lives saying that they wouldn't stand inside all day to make 70 - 100k.

 

[hye345]

Given my current pay, I would take a 30% cut if it meant better staffing and better hours (9-5).

 

[statepharmagent]

Hell no. I wouldnt do this again even with the same salary. Not in a million years.

 

[gwarm01]

LOL at all these people who have never actually worked a day of hard work in their lives saying that they wouldn't stand inside all day to make 70 - 100k.

I guess I should add some qualifiers. If my pay was reduced to 70k but I knew I could still make 100k+ at a different location, even in a different state, I would quit. If all pharmacist positions everywhere received roughly the same reduction, then I would have to do a cost/benefit analysis to see if there was another profession worth investing in. If we are dealing with a situation where all professions across the board got hit like this, say due to a massive recession or some other disaster, then hell yeah I stay working inside for 70k/yr.

 

[Gombrich12]

LOL at all these people who have never actually worked a day of hard work in their lives saying that they wouldn't stand inside all day to make 70 - 100k.

The smart pharmacists have been wise enough with their money where they have the option to take a lower paying job without it drastically affecting their standard of living. Very few retail pharmacy jobs are worth 70k for 40 hours a week.

 

[CetiAlphaFive]

The smart pharmacists have been wise enough with their money where they have the option to take a lower paying job without it drastically affecting their standard of living. Very few retail pharmacy jobs are worth 70k for 40 hours a week.

And yet the techs show up for work, every day, for $25-30,000 per year

 

[Gombrich12]

"And yet the techs show up for work, every day, for $25-30,000 per year"

Yes, it is truly odd that people with only a high school diploma and minimal skills continue showing up for $25,000 a year.

 

[CetiAlphaFive]

"And yet the techs show up for work, every day, for $25-30,000 per year"
Yes, it is truly odd that people with only a high school diploma and minimal skills continue showing up for $25,000 a year.

How is that different from people with fake doctorates?

(Tongue in cheek post disclaimer)

 

[lord999]

Even without the second income or the wife's income, sure. I took that deal when I graduated, and even adjusted for inflation, I could work for 20,800 (FPL) and still do OK since the largest fixed expense would be property tax which would index to my lack of earnings. It would be a Spartan existence but no worse than other times in life. That is a secret, the ability to walk away.

And it would not cost my marriage either. We met and lived poor together for enough time before our careers took off. That is an epoch that I shall never have again.

But, if you cannot live on less than 50% of your takehome pay (tax, mortgage, and student debt) for at least a year, you probably need to reevaulate your lifestyle as being unemployed is not a zero risk in this day. Others may say differently, but you need the ability to live beneath your means.

 

[CetiAlphaFive]

That is a secret, the ability to walk away.

+100
This exactly.

Everyone complains about metrics, poor conditions, and stress, but nobody has the guts to demand what they need and walk away.

 

[quickpic007]

Perhaps a realistic question for all of us: would you still pursue/work in pharmacy if the average salary/your salary was cut 20-30%? If so, how about 40%?

Nah I'd retrain in some other 140k field
Software, sales, trades

 

[lord999]

In a heart beat.


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Well, here you go then.
https://www.pausd.org/sites/default/files/pdf-faqs/attachments/1617Salary_Teacher.pdf

Unless you teach at Lowell (SF) or one of the magnets, there are Bay Area public schools that will pay six digits for an apathetic science teacher. Just make sure to wear stab-proof kevlar and titanium crotch guard when going to the classroom (looking at you, East Palo Alto). The related teaching boards have lots of arguments between public and private school teachers. Private school teachers are almost always paid less than public (40-60% less depending on degree and subject), but they don't have to put up with the public like the public school teachers.

A couple of my colleagues at the VA are married to teachers at the next door Gunn High in Palo Alto, and the drama is simply incredible (they should make a TV show out of it) with us having coffee talks on the trauma cases from the suicide attempts (stealing Daddy's tools from the Stanford labs for your dramatic exit is a real hit with the school custodial teams).

Medication Outcomes Center Faculty (JPF01360) - AP Recruit
(There's others that don't require a math background.)

I have a tenure track position at UCSF that I would like to offer you then. Included in the package deal is a CALPERS-funded retirement (which will never happen), more committee work, and 16 credit hours of teaching a year with no research commitment (for those of you who don't know academic loads, this is very high).

Somehow, I think you wouldn't accept. It's not that it isn't a good job or that what you have isn't a good job, but inertia is worth $. I think it would take somewhere between $50k and $80k to dislodge you from your current position right now. Bad management could possibly lower it down to $0 or you might be even willing to fund your transfer (the pay cut proposition).

Nursing definitely is at $0 at some places where nurses quit and get hired elsewhere all the time as a steady-state consideration. Pharmacy does tend to make those sort of longitudinal investments such that people are willing to stay in bad positions.

And FYI on that position, it's been unfilled for at least three years, because UCSF can't pay anyone enough even as an Assistant Professor to offset other offers elsewhere (the offer went to someone two years ago who picked UAMS over UCSF!). It needs to pay in the $160+ range to land a tenure track Assistant Professor there where that easily pays for a senior Professor elsewhere. The only sorts of hires they have had as of late have been spousal hires as it's not economical to go there anyway.

The grass is always greener, but there's usually a decent reason why certain positions do pay. Money is usually the last thing any business wants to offer, so if it is offering, then there's something to it.