R&D staff averaged $28,620 in US last year

The median salary for engineers and scientists engaged in research and development in the United States last year was $2,385 a month, or $28,620 a year , a study by Battelle Columbus Laboratories shows.

The study, conducted for the US Department of Energy, reports that the monthly median salary for researchers with a bachelors' degrees was $2,201; masters' degrees, $2,462; and doctorates, $2,688. The figures are based on salaries of degreed nonsupervisory and supervisory researchers at 322 establishments.

Battelle, which has conducted the annual survey since 1968, sampled 91,315 scientists and engineers in 1979. They work in industry nonprofit research institutes, federally funded contract research-and-development centers, educational institutions; and the federal government.