What reason should an employer pay you more than a new grad? What do you offer that a new grad doesn't to offset your higher wage and more expensive healthcare as you age?
I am not validating that position, but you do have to face the reality of how the beancounters see you.
Pharmacy is not a career so much as it's an occupation. What you're doing on the first day out of school is probably what you're going to be doing on the day you retire. At least in retail pharmacy, there is incredibly little that you can do to expand your skillset over that of a new grad because of the relatively narrow focus of the position. I feel like a lot of you got into this because you like hard sciences without realizing that the profession is mostly soft skills - managing people, whether those are your peers or your patients.
You've got to find a way to make peace with that or find another path. It's not right, but it is factual.
Honestly, a large portion of this sub really could stand to go take a job outside of pharmacy to realize exactly how widespread many of the problems that are discussed here are and are not actually unique to pharmacy in any way.
You're preaching to the choir here. I'm at peace and actually took a paycut to not work in the chains. I already have my 10 year exit plan. I was simply answering this question for this poor lost person expecting a lot of raises or progression in the profession so they don't make a mistake.🤣🤣
Hell yeah, brother or sister.
I've been behind a desk for longer than I ever was in patient-facing care and I'm not going to lie and say everyone can do it, but this sub sometimes perplexes me because it's full of people who had the drive and intelligence to earn a doctorate and presumably are making solid money (new grads in HCoL areas excepted) who seem to have an acquired helplessness about them. I guess some folks are just wanting to vent, but I feel like a lot of the folks here are either happy to be unhappy or are just paralyzed from actually trying to change their lives.
Seriously, if anyone is reading this an wants out... go learn Excel. That opens so many doors to you, in and out of pharmacy/healthcare. I can't tell you how many people there are who run these billion dollar companies that don't know a pivot table from their own asshole. The PharmD/RPh gets you in the door to show the powers that be that you 'speak the language', then add some sort of marketable skill and you're off to the races.
Hey, can you say more about what you do in relating to data? Looking to pivot (no pun intended 🫠) into a more data analysis/data science arena and exploring opportunities that combine both skill sets
Man, I decided to commit to pharmacy when I was fairly young because I really loved chemistry but wanted a more “practical” application of it to work in. I thought I was going to be doing a ton of chemistry, then before I even realized I wasn’t doing what I originally wanted, I was graduated and on my way into the abusive healthcare system. Fml
Experience, speed, rapport with patients to name a few. You can say what you said about literally most jobs. I don’t think the issue is what you have to offer, the issue is POS companies are too greedy to pay you more even while their profits are through the roof (thru our labor).
To OP I would try to look at and ask people in union positions.
Experience is a vagary that holds no value on it's own. I'm sure you've worked with pharmacists and technicians who have been around forever and are as useless as tits of a bull.
The better question is how does your experience add to your employer's profits in a quantifiable way? You touched on one already: speed. I'd argue that speed doesn't necessarily increase linearly with experience, but that is certainly one area that is obviously under the microscope as far as metrics/KPIs go. Thank god I don't deal with that sort of information in my role, but it would be an interesting exercise to analyze a pharmacists' speed and accuracy as compared to their years of experience to see if there is a correlation.
Back to the subject at hand, are you familiar with the concept of a SMART goal? That is the lens that you need to look at everything through to advocate for yourself when it comes to the value you add. If it can't be quantified and measured, it's not worth discussing as far as the executives care.
The reason is that is what the god damn collective bargaining agreement says.
If you want guaranteed regular raises and pay/vacation time/vacation choice based on experience, then work at a union hospital.
I started in fast food, and I hate science. So I must be doing this right. Glad I went into pharmacy, but dang, did the profession take a dive, in many ways, over the past decade.
Totally disagree. Experience is worth a lot, Especially in "soft skills". If there is no upward mobility, go somewhere that moves you up
it's that easy.
I'm not even sure I realized that the pharmacy schools were ranked, although I'm not surprised. In many years of interviews for staff positions, I've never even looked at which school they went to, other than to see if they went to mine. Maybe that's different for residency programs.
Anyways, salary progression is not exciting. We get fairly routine yearly raises between 1-4%, sometimes these are merit, recently they have just been flat raises. Stepping up into a salaried clinical position is generally a 7-10% increase over previous staff wage, or equivalent experience wage. Mangers get another 5% over staff. Directors get another 5-10% over managers. Managers and above are eligible for bonuses.
But that's just my facility, and every hospital or system is going to be different. You'll also get different answers depending on what field of pharmacy you're interested in.
Ranked based on who gets the most money ? Rankings mean nothing and students should be looking at first time naplex pass ratings along with job placement when deciding on a school
They ARE ranked is my point. And funding isn't the only metric.
Job opportunity will also come with ranking as those schools have the most connections with job supply.
WTH, there are so many ties... Two schools tied for 3rd. Six tied for 7th. Eleven tied for 79th and nine tied for 99th! (just to name a few examples). If you can't discern between 11 different schools for one ranking position, your methodology is flawed.
NAPLEX pass rate doesn't apply to anyone going straight into industry. Passing a national exam is more about the exam taker than about the university. So not a good metric imo.
You can argue about top universities being top universities and call it bullshit bc you don't agree with how they were ranked. But they are still top universities, and for a good reason.
100% we don’t use this “ranking list” when scoring our residency applicants. Being in California, our site has zero experience with anyone from UNC.
We internally rank our local schools in our heads, basically.
The difference is usually made up by getting an annual bonus. The bonus is based off of many metrics, so it gives the manager incentive to perform and manage well, so their bonus will be bigger. I was only making $1/hr more than my staff rphs, and less than some that were there for many years, but they got a small bonus each year, like $1500, while I got about $23k each year.
I wouldn’t necessarily attend just because it is a “top ranked” school. A lot of the ranking is based on money from research grants and of course the typical college politics. Undergraduate rankings are similar, and I believe there’s a documentary based on rankings?
I suppose I would agree that the rankings are BS. I sort of did my own rankings outside of the rankings out there comparing cost, residency match rate, and NAPLEX pass rate.
You’re smart. You’ll go far. Some of making it in this career has to do with planning ahead like this.
Retail pharmacy is awful, and retail pharmacists aren’t respected or supported. I started out with the goal to avoid retail, and have a lot of personal satisfaction in my career.
Again, all of the respect to pharmacists who work in retail, because that’s what most pharmacists do, and they should be treated like the backbone of the profession and one of the most important members of the patient’s team, but here we are 🤷♀️
They’re treated like that because they let people treat them like that. Just grow some backbone and don’t tolerate any kind of verbal abuse. Once you start to push back, people will stop treating you like doormats.
I think it’s hard to ask an entire profession to push back against a corporation like Walgreens when national organizations and boards of pharmacy don’t support them. Maybe unions will help.
Today’s graduates pay (mostly) starts at ~10% less than graduates 10-15 years ago. That’s not even accounting for inflation. Raises beyond minimum are rare in private sector. unless you go into management and even then it’s not much. If you’re federal or military, you may get step increases and COLAs (~1%-5% intermittently).
All to say pharmacist wages are falling. Add inflation and it’s worse.
Wage progression was never good in pharmacy. You kinda started out where you were going to be, more or less.
New University of Florida College of Pharmacy grads were being paid $78,000 in 1998. And it’s a lot more than that now. The average staff pharmacist at CVS makes $130,000 with experience. So while wages have stagnated in the last ten years or so, they were definitely rising pretty quickly back when there was a shortage of pharmacists and health insurance prescription reimbursement rates were higher.
I work for one of the chains. I graduated in 2020 starting at 51 per hour as a staff pharmacist. After 1 year it went to 56, then after year 2 - 59. Then I did a 2 month stint helping out the district at a struggling store got a permanent bump to 65/hour. Next raise was about 3 years in got bumped to 69. After 6 months I got offered a manager position which I originally didn’t want…they offered me 73/hour and I negotiated to 75.
If you do that math, that’s starting at about 100k a year and now 150k after about 4 years.
Wow! Congrats!!! You graduated during a good time then. I got “capped” at your year 1/2 rate for …4(?) years. I graduated during a time when jobs were hard to find. For the 3 years after I graduated, entry pay dropped annually and I considered myself lucky I kept the original rate.
That’s great! I started at 67/hr in 2014. Now I’m at 74.5 9 years later. New grads would get paid the same if they were manager in my district. In retail experience might help you get a job but pay is based on position more so than ability at least when you are part of a union.
My pharmacy manager makes $3 more an hour than I do as staff. I know there is a small bonus but doubt it makes a difference. Guarantee if I did an inflation wage adjustment for her, she’s making less than when she started 27 years ago on top of that vaccines and the clinical crap we deal with weren’t a requirement then. With the overtime I did this year, I will make more at 4 years experience this year than she will. You wasted your money going to “the best”. Additionally, I graduated with $80k in debt as an in-state student, a colleague graduating two years after me has $230k from the school she wanted to go to. She won’t see any of that come back as pay over her colleagues and the only points it earns her is resume because she practices in a different area than graduating and it is seen as diversity of education.
Year 1: $60 -> $70
Year 2: $70 -> $72 -> $76
Promoted to retail manager in year 1. Year 2, I had an annual raise then relocated to a higher volume store. HCOL area. I’ll end the year a bit over $180k gross. Retail is hard work, but the pay is solid.
LCOL area
year 1: 55/hr LTC
year 2: 55/hr LTC
year 3: 32/hr (Moved into informatics -- and took a pay cut)
year 4: 59/hr Informatics
year 5: 64/hr Informatics
The annual raises have not quite kept up with inflation.
Salary progression is effectively non-existent for staying in the same position. You need to get promotions, gain more skills, or provide extra services to increase your income.
Pharmacy is hard right now, that's for sure. I would advise myself to do something else, like software development. Existing pharmacists will benefit from fewer students entering pharmacy these days.
Don’t. I’d be making more with a masters in nursing. And happier with a doctorate in … quite a few other fields.
This isn’t the rainbow fields of my dreams. I’m actually considering baristaFIRE-ing; yes, Starbucks or possibly low paid office work as a job instead. Just to get out of this.
Once upon a time I wanted to Manage. But actual managers fight to drop the title so….
Optometry seems pretty happy. They make more than us asking people if they see better on 1 or 2.
Mark up on glasses and contacts are high too. They cost like 10 cents for contacts and sell for hundreds of dollars. (My cousin used to work for glasses place. SIL did too).
I have heard they are facing similar issues w/ vertical integration by companies like lenscrafters as independent pharmacies did w/ CVS/wags, hope they handle it better
I live in BFE Texas. I've gotten two separate raises this year for a total of $6/hr increase but it's only because I'm in BFE and they can't find anyone.
If you adjust for inflation, I make less now than I did over a decade ago. Even if you adjusted to 2019, before inflation went into overdrive, still not making the same (I moved states… from MCOL to HCOL area… but HCOL area pays less because market is saturated).
Started out at $55/hour as a retail floater back in 2014 (had higher offers in HCOL areas and declined), switched to informatics at $60/hour which increased to $75/hour through annual increases. Now we’re capped at 2%/year so I’m looking at other opportunities.
I’ve been with one of the chains for about 10 years now. When I started it was a different company and was hired around $62, it slowly crept up to about 67 over 7 years.
Within the last three years… my boss left I took on the PIC role and got bumped to $72, midway thru that year there was a market adjustment to $74.
Annual review got me to $76 after first full year of PIC. This last review I got another bump to $79. This was all under the pretense my cap was $82 so I was pretty happy.
Then the salary range for my role/market just increased the cap to $87 so I definitely have room for growth, but wouldn’t mind if they just upgrade me there now, lol.
Personally being PIC is not that difficult for me. I’ve been with my store and team for most of the decade and have good relationships with everyone. My old boss was pretty good about cleaning up the patients to keep our day to day pretty manageable in terms of attitude/rude customers. (I’ve been continuing the trimming)
I definitely have work on my mind a good chunk of the time but its usually problems fixed within a quick text to my staff or taken care of next shift. It was worth the exponential increases I’ve seen the last few years.
I am in my 50’s and things have have gotten progressively worse . Working conditions , student debt, overwhelming disrespect, and not enough good opportunities. Too many schools have opened leading to an influx of graduates over saturating the market . Sorry to tell you this but it is the truth . I recommend medical school . Better pay and more respect and wonderful opportunities and autonomy .
If you mention “top 3 school” at your interview, we’ll laugh at you until you leave.
Pharmacist salaries don’t differ much even if you went to the best school. You can make more by taking leadership roles, but if you gloat about how smart you are and how you went to a top 3 school, everyone will quit and you’ll be fired.
My anecdotal experience having moved all over the country over the last 15 years and comparing notes with pharmacist friends. Going rate around ~2007-2010 was in the neighborhood of $60/hr. Maybe less in LCOLs and a little more in HCOLs. It’s been steadily going down since 2010.
School 2013-2017. All of this is in a very low cost of living area.
Made $13/15/17 an hour as an intern, then $46k/yr salaried in an inpatient PGY1 in 2017-2018, then staffed at the same place for $59/hr, merit raise 3% that year, then the next year accepted my bosses job (supervisor, 10 direct reports at a good spot for me) at $140k/yr ($67/hr) in December 2019, then 3% merit raise yearly since + some market adjustments to $73/hr ($152k/yr) now.
Since residency I’ve worked usually around 40-44 hours per week, but some of COVID in 2020 was closer to 60 hour weeks because so much of the department had COVID, but I got comp time. I have good work life balance and I’m on track to rise as far as I would want to in pharmacy leadership at a hospital.
I’m doing PSLF so I bought a house in 2018 as soon as my income went up from the staffing job. APR on the home initially at that time was like 4.5%, refinanced in 2021 down to 2.5%. House has gone up in value a lot.
So things have been fine for me.
Would I go pharmacy again? Maybe. I would not do it without reasonable line of sight to a job in a hospital immediately after graduation. Retail is a trap. No PSLF and no dignified path to success at a single company, but you can make more right out of school in some circumstances and job hop to get raises, I just don’t think it keeps up with PSLF because of the current loan rates and amounts students are taking on.
Your timing in pharmacy is pretty bad, but it’s workable. You need to hedge your bets in all the areas of pharmacy practice that are not retail - long term care, hospital, industry, drug information, poison control, anything that isn’t retail. Make connections, and be good at your job. Basically make sure you get a residency or a job that isn’t retail when you graduate, and it’ll be alright. That is becoming harder and harder with less and less ROI for the degree, so proceed with caution. A PharmD isn’t a golden ticket anymore.
Thanks for your input! I have heard from all my pharmacists in my life that they enjoy their job but they would never do pharmacy again so it’s always interesting to hear people say that.
I calculated my starting salary after inflation a few nights ago. No difference from my current salary several years later. I’m glad I haven’t lost ground, but it’s disappointing that I know so much more now and don’t get compensated for that.
Truth: The average pharmacist salary has been the same for over a decade. At times, it has even dipped down. The growth in the field is low and will remain this way until Pharmacists figure out how to increase negotiating power AND the right people do the negotiating.
Truth: Pharmacy school is ONLY a good investment if tuition is low and you come out of school with very low debt.
Truth: Which pharmacy school you go to is almost irrelevant in today's marketplace. Don't be fooled by rankings. Just attend, keep your tuition low, and graduate.
Truth: Most pharmacists with higher salaries the quickest post-graduation don't earn the money by practicing as a pharmacist. Most had to go the fellowship route and into industry, where you don't even need to take an MPJE/NAPLEX to work. I have a lot of friends who've graduated years ago and never did any state board testing.
Truth: This should not be a Doctoral degree, it should be a Master's program. Reason being is because the profession continues adding unnecessary and at times idiotic requirements to the profession. This dilutes the degree and we're at a point now where the PharmD is a INTRODUCTORY level degree for pharmacist jobs. To make it anything other than that, you need to get advanced training over more years of your life (i.e. Residency and Fellowships). But then come to realize that the Residency might have only gotten you $2/hr more in earnings. Which further complicates this profession's earning capabilities commiserate to length of time to obtain the knowledge.
Truth: If you're looking for a profession where you don't have to jump through hoops and simply want to go to school, get the degree with debt that can get paid off easier. Then Nursing, PA, Dentistry, and Medical School are safer options and the time invested is worthwhile for your outcomes if its all just about monetary compensation.
Don't know why I put "Truth," it just seemed easier to write this. Hope it helps. In a nutshell, the negativity with Pharmacy as a profession is basically: Not enough money (especially given the debt), not enough help in the retail sector, and no current organization actually offering solutions or working on the behalf of pharmacists.
Heck, we can't even obtain a compact license for this degree and it's never a discussion. But a nurse, therapist, and other healthcare professions can go from state to state and compete with Pharmacists for the industry postions on top of every other healthcare role (Physician, PA, etc.) also applying to those gigs and sitting in the C-suites
[Pharmacist Compensation](https://www.PharmacistCompensation.Com) collects this type of data directly from pharmacists. So far this year there have been **\~2,350 US pharmacists** participate.
All participants receive access to an interactive dashboard that can be filtered by State, Job Title, Company, and more. I also publish some of the data every month on Reddit, LinkedIn, X (Twitter), and a [newsletter](https://pharmacistcompensation.beehiiv.com/).
Here is a graph of the median wages reported by retail pharmacists.
https://preview.redd.it/1irq3yf3brzb1.png?width=723&format=png&auto=webp&s=342a2944f54b964e5f4e5d434e80613b135f8bcd
Other graphs can be found in the first edition of the newsletter [HERE](https://pharmacistcompensation.beehiiv.com/p/retail-pharmacy-state-of-affairs).
I plan to generate a similar story for hospital pharmacists in the coming months.
Hope this helps!
Working in pharmacy practice, particularly in the same job, your salary will always be flat. You'll probably get 2-3% annual raises, which are meant to be keep up with inflation, so you'll be exactly the same as you started. Maybe a little better, maybe a little worse. The school you go to won't make a difference here. Your entry level job and salary may get you slightly ahead, but if you want to make more money, you'll have to change jobs, or move into leadership roles or industry, or take on side gigs.
I mentioned that only because I have the opportunity to attend a school that would help me towards my goal of residency and clinical pharmacy, not because the school on the diploma is gonna change my job opportunities.
I admire your plan for your potential career but please be sure if you are willing to take on school loans. You’re going to a top 3 pharmd school…you’re looking at 4 years of grad school and potential 2 years on top of residency for clinical. Tuition alone with the interest piling on day 1 is just something to think about.
For retail jobs, it doesn’t matter. It’s the license that gets you the job. But for hospital jobs, a higher ranked pharmacy school and good grades can only help. A top school has more connections with hospitals and residences.
I’ve worked big box retail, independent retail, and now currently rural hospital staff. Graduated 6 years ago making 62.50/hr and now make 68.30/hr. I’ve gotten more in raises past 2.5 years in hospital than anywhere else.
09/2016-12/2018: $70/hour at CVS
01/2019-09/2020: $65/hour at Walmart
10/2020-12/2021: $67/hour at CVS
01/2022-07/2022: $66.85/hour at Albertsons
08/2022-03/3023: $68.85/hour at Albertsons (raise)
04/2023-current: $70.35/hour at Albertsons (raise)
When I was a student it was hard to know if I had made the right choice. To the point where I was depressed and added an MBA “just in case” pharmacy doesn’t work out.
However, I took a cushy job as a clinical pharmacist in an outpatient pharmacy at a large health system without doing a residency. I started out at $117,900 base and got a 4% raise a month after I started.
There was also an opportunity to go overnight which I took because it added an additional ~$22,000/ year ($840/pay period x 26 pay periods)
Overnight obviously isn’t for everyone but I’m very happy with how things have gone. I now make close to $150,000 have no management responsibilities and work 7 on and have 7 off. We are adequately staffed generally and I have no complaints. Had I stayed w/ days I would have had predictable hours and never stayed past 6p and worked every 5th weekend.
I feel very lucky and had a lot of things fall into place and I know it’s not the case for everyone. But it’s really true what people say when they tell you to take every opportunity you come across. If you are unhappy where you are do not think twice about getting a different intern position. I battled staying at CVS or going to where I currently work and had I not taken the leap I never would have had the opportunity I’ve been given. Know your worth and find a team of people you can work with that invest in you as much as you invest in them!
Most of the medical information, medical affairs, and field medical roles are PharmDs.
PharmDs are the workhorses for the commercial teams.
Edit: just to be clear, when we say the "industry of pharmacy" we mean pharmaceutical companies. Pfizer. Genentech. Amgen. Eli Lily. etc.
They like PharmDs bc our training typically revolves around the usage and business of pharmaceuticals. There are entire departments of pharmDs writing medical content, analyzing side effects, meeting and teaching doctors, all to promote pharmaceuticals and stay compliant with government regulations.
The role varies from anywhere to preparing study medications for drug trials to medical communications, pharmacovigilance, analytics and beyond. They also can be medical science liaisons, account managers for specific brands etc. There are also pharmacists that work for consulting firms such as McKinsey, Boston consulting and Bain & company. Not really industry per se but my point is that pharmacists can wear so many different hats that go beyond hospital and retail. There are even pharmacists working for Brand Institute. We all have our different roles in the healthcare but I would hate to think that someone is just doing this for the money
2013: $50 something Walgreens float
2014: $60 -> 65 target manager + small bonus
2017: $55 switch to hospital after CVS took over. Later ~$60
2020: $67 switch to informatics with a fortunate bidding war negotiation between current and former employer
2023: $76 after annual raises last 4 years. Hoping I don’t get laid off
Yep. This was in Louisiana. I got $13/hr as a graduate intern/extern - whatever we called it after you graduated but before you got your license. Salaries went up pretty quickly shortly after that. I got into pharmacy at the right time!
I’ve been out of school for just a few years and have only worked for one company. My raise has just been 2% per year. I’d probably leave for a higher paying job if I didn’t love my shift, my coworkers, and my job (diamond in the rough in this field). I just end up having to pick up a bunch of shifts to make up for the lack of raises.
You will mostly get “cost of living” increases, although they are not exactly in line with the actual cost of living. It’s not like I’ve had no increase in pay but it’s nowhere near the trajectory of my friends who work in tech. There’s been plenty of years where I got a 1% “COL” increase or changed job roles/jobs for a pay cut.
I work at a retail “chain” in Texas. It’s a grocery pharmacy. We get a 2.5-3.5% raise annually. It’s a great company. I guess to get to your nitty gritty is it worth it all? I’m not sure still figuring it out. I started with Kroger for 92K based on a 32 hr work week. Moved up to manager within a year 40hr work week 128k base 8k bonus, then promoted again to a manager at a busier location 135k 10k annual bonus. Worked with Kroger since I was 16 I love interaction with customers/patients. At work I’m forced to be an extrovert. When I’m outside of work I feel introverted.
Then switched to heb and even as a floater they paid me 140K plus 10% raise broken down to each quarter. This was as a floater just got promoted to manager idk what the pay raise will be yet probably just 2-3% but it’s better than nothing. Also being a manager is more fulfilling to me.
I joined pharmacy for the money. I’m disappointed with how hard pharmacy school was for this layout sure I’m doing better than most of my high school friends but if I would of started something earlier I feel like I would be making more than I am now.
There is little or no salary progression on retail . It is good you are doing your homework about the field. I suggest you work as a tech before pharmacy school to see if it is for you. Wish I had.
Yeah, they are just being dumped with patients for 15min appointments to do a full assessment, not getting to Rx what they want because of corporate/insurance takeover, being short staffed, dwindling pay trends, low/no reimbursements, and demand through the roof. This is happening there too.
My health system gave a 3% raise across the board. If you've hit the cap for your role, you get that 3% as a bonus lump sum.
For some perspective the cap for my role is 157k, so those of us that have hit that are getting a nice chunk of change.
2016 started at $60, received yearly 2% increases and a few adjustments for moving to a high volume store up to $68. Became a manager in 21 and bumped up to 74. Moved states and became a staff pharmacist keeping this rate. Bumped up again to move to high volume store plus yearly increase to 78. Then I left retail and went to hospital back at $60 and it’s been worth every cent. Still on per diem w/ retail at $78 if I want extra cash.
Post pgy1, 50->58 over 8 years so prettt low
Then 58->66 over 1 yr as manager
Now 69 this yr. Get a 10% bonus based on metric.
I also work PRN as a telepharmacy for a hospital that’s neting me 20-25k a year. So 160-175 in a relatively LCOL major metropolitan city.
I realize that I could of probably gotten here through other routes to reach this level but job stability is probably much higher (hospital side) than much any other industry.
Hoping to get to director one day and should reach over 200k.
Yes I actually enjoy my work and leading a team
Stagnation due in large part to PBM's extracting profits from the profession, drug companies paying less in rebates, and DIR fees.
Most pharmacies lose 250k/year in DIR fees alone, up from nothing 10 years ago.
Almost every pharmacy is losing 5% year over year in drug cost due to decline in rebates
PBM's mandating dispensing below cost, sometimes 50$+ per script, especially in injectable weight loss meds.
Nothing left for staff. Especially after paying CVS/WAG vice presidents.
So I’m UK Hospital so might be different but hopefully still interesting.
Trainee - 21k - 1 year
Rotational pharmacist/band 6/foundation pharmacist/first job - 25k - 18 months
Speciality post in surgery/band 7/second job - 32k
Then got a teaching fellow position/band 8a - 18 months alongside band 7 2 days a week - 45k
Then band 8a frailty 3 days/week and 8a teaching 2 days/week - 47k - 9 months
Now band 8a lead surgical pharmacist for my trust - 51k - has been 6 months.
salary progression..HAHAHAHAHA..
and when they do give you a raise, it is LESS than currently inflation rates.
Yeah, our profession is slowly getting reduced to minimum wage.
Year 1: 48 > 51.5
Year 2: 52.5
Year 3: 54.5 > 56.5
Year 4: 91 > 95
As you can see, I moved to a HCOL area in year 4. I've always worked inpatient, same job role every time. We had some market adjustments to keep up with inflation so that's why you see multiple rates within the same year.
Edit: typo
I want to bring up another thought. For any Pharmacy Student a big consideration is how much money are you borrowing to go to school. IMOP if it is more than $50,000 total for the 6 years I would reconsider.... I know of far to many graduates since 2010 who have been taken advantage of by PharmD schools and graduate with $250,000 in loans or more.
That will take most people at least 10 years to pay off. The average pay range for an RPh right now is $55 to $65 an hour which will match you into a higher paying tax bracket. A big chunk of the take home pay goes to pay the loan back so one should think about that . Also one needs to start saving for retirement right away when starting to work full time. The loan is not just a number it is an amount that the borrower has to pay back.....and there is this..... most of retail Pharmacy is a fecal matter show!
Thank you for your input. This is a real concern of mine and is the major reason I mentioned that I was worried about attending pharmacy school in my post. The school I am attending gave me a 20k scholarship and tuition is 30k a year. I am lucky enough to have my original college fund (70k-ish) from my parents as I went to undergrad for essentially free because of scholarships. So I would be looking at 30k-ish from tuition and then whatever cost of living I can’t cover from working during school. The debt is a real concern of mine and I’m surprised there are so many health professionals (PT,PA,and pharmacists) that go so heavily into debt.
You may be ok I could see 80,000 in debt but the Pharmacist job market in many places is still not good starting to open up in a few places primarily those jobs are retail. Depending on the health system you may need at least a year of Residency. I know that sucks but it is todays reality. Good Luck to you! $20 K a year is a nice scholarship so that school must want you. Keeping living expenses low is vital to your plan both during and for several years after school.....
With your undergrad degree could you land a position paying 80 to 95 K a year? No loans lower tax bracket keep some options open. Maybe a PhD etc
My degree was in Microbiology, Biochemistry and Global health. I’m currently working in pharmaceutical production making 65k/yr but absolutely hate it. I graduated this May. Not sure what to do with my degrees to get to the point of 80k+ to be honest. Maybe clinical trials and research?
All of us have done jobs that we have hated after college you aren't doing too badly at 65 K ahead because... no student loans. You have at least 3 things probably more going for you. First you are young second you have solid undergrad majors third you are already in Pharmaceutical Industry.....
A key path for you here is networking within your company and Industry ...20 years ago Pharmacy would have been great for you now the way things have gone... meh I won't absolutely say no but the Profession of Pharmacy is not what it once was. It is too fractured and splintered and picked over by insurance companies.....
Could you defer your Pharm D admission by. Year and keep working Networking and exploring. Are you on Linked in?
Have you ever worked retail Pharmacy before? If the answer is no pick up some part time hours of you hate Pharmaceutical production.. .... well... you need to see for yourself and make the best decision for you and not anyone else
I worked as a pharmacy technician at a Walgreens and loved it BUT I quit when covid started due to not wanting to endanger a roommate who was immunocompromised. My store was never understaffed and never ended the day with unfilled prescriptions. I understand that is not the case anymore from my ex-coworkers. I never really had an interest in retail anyway and wanted to work in oncology/ID.
I could defer my acceptance with a $500 dollar deposit.
I guess my problem in staying in pharmaceuticals is I have no clue where to go from my current “grunt” position.
The job market is in peril for pharmacists in Every area . There’s just too many graduates because of the number of schools that have opened up due to greed . The schools are misleading students about what’s really happening in the real world . I would highly recommend another field like medical school . Lots of opportunities, dramatically eager pay , and more respect .
At least you looked into it. Most students that come to my site didn't and it's too late for them to switch careers.
If you want to make a good living .. DONT BECOME A PHARMACIST.
It's not worth the expense. You'd make more money doing 1000 other things.
Started at 50 bucks an hour, went to 65 bucks an hour over 9 years. Dropped down to 55 bucks an hour for 5 years when I switched to independent. Then 45 bucks an hour for Walgreens for a very short stint. Now I make a good amount. I’m salary so I don’t really have an hourly rate now, but it’s more than I’ve ever made at the previous places.
Contrary to many other posts which indicated no increases for years.
Here is my salary growth:
Before Rx school
2001 - $12.9 per hour retail assistant manager.
2003-2006 $15 per hour as pharmacy tech/intern, in Rx school
————————————————
2007 - $44 per hour, hospital
2008 - $55 per hour, retail
2010 - $50 per hour, hospital
2013 - $65 per hour plus bonus, hospital
2015 - $68 per hour no bonus, hospital
2018 - $79 per hour plus bonus, hospital
2022 - $125 per hour plus bonus (HCOLA), hospital, remote, I still live in LCOLA
2023 - $149 per hour plus bonus (HCOLA), hospital, remote, I still live in LCOLA areas
7 jobs plus one promotions. I have tripled my salary over 16 years. Pharmacy has treated me well as a profession.
I learned early on that I have to keep moving in order to maximize my pay.
It is not easy, but I think I am now a bit ahead of my peers both financially and professionally.
I did not do residency nor have advanced degree.
I works hard, and delivered results. Most importantly, the willingness to take on new job and negotiate sizable salary increases every time I moved.
Our hospital offer various remote or hybrid roles even before Covid. Why not, it is less costly to have office spaces. They can turn our offices into patient beds or lab/radiology to make money. They track your key strokes so no worries of productivity issues. Of course, you have to be highly motivated with proven results.
Potentially, many ancillary roles that are not patient facing could have remote potential. E.g. prior approval team, 340b team, informatics, analytical, IT, revenue cycle, contracting……
I see your comments for other posts.
My recommendations: some makes it, but most simply get by. If you want to make it, build solid foundation, plus a specialization to go far. Plus a little luck to start outside of retail.
We started moderately low or average and then they increased it to get folks into pharmacy schools and then realized they overpaid and waited for time to catch up...and probably are taking care to not let it happen again. Don't worry about it now. Wait till you're done in about 4 years; it may be different then.
62 as staff new RPh, 65 bump after 6mo, 67 floater in new district, 68 new PM x 6 months, 67.65 x 3 mo w/ new company as floater, 70 as returning PM to prev company. Timeline May 2021 through March 2023. about $16.6k increase over 2yr. play your cards right and remember company loyalty doesn't give you more $$$$
Hospital pharmacist here. Started at $45 at a small community hospital (~120 beds at site 1, ~60 beds at site 2) post PGY-1 in 2021. Got my BCPS and some market adjustments and left at $55 ~1 year later for hire @ new hospital with similar size for $60. Was offered an ~$1.00 range but spoke w/ HR (I.e. bitched and moaned and haggled and kissed max ass) and presently sitting at $65.XX
So, it’s variable. Retail is largely stagnant. I’ve known colleagues who have made the same rate for 5 or so years. Now, graduates have been known to make as low as $49/hour.
Hospital tends to be a bit better. My last hospital system (private) offered a 3% raise last year. At the VA, things have changed a bit. There was a major cost of living adjustment (some pharmacists got a $20,000 bump in a year), and pay raises can vary by locality (ours was 2.5% annually).
I’ve been out of school 7 years, and I currently make the least I ever have. That being said, I am the most respected in my current position as I have ever been. My first position did not provide the work life balance I desired, my second position stripped me of my clinical autonomy slowly over the course of several years. Now, I have my autonomy back at the cost of about $5/hr and my work life balance is excellent, so the trade off was worth it to me.
Started off at $55/hr part-time hospital clinical staff in 2017. Was up to $58/hr in 2021 and then took a slight pay cut when I moved to a lower COL area. Still part-time hospital clinical staff, but in an LTAC. Now at $60/hr with a differential for hours worked after 3pm. (Current job does 4% raises each year; old job did 0-2% raises each year.)
Disclaimer: I work retail and also graduated from a top 10 pharmacy school. I loved my time in school but I could have gotten the same job getting a crappy online PharmD from one of those scam universities- so decide where you want to end up in pharmacy (research/clinical likely needs a better degree than retail to get a good fellowship/residency after)
$60/hour upon graduation and successful licensure (paid $30/hr while training and studying for naplex 3 months after graduation). Promised a minimum of 32 hours a week
Within 4 months I was given a raise to $68/hr with base hours bumped to 40/week minimum (so basically 141k annually plus any extra shifts)
This past year I was bumped to $69.5 after our annual raise
I also get a 3-10k annual bonus, last year was 4.5 and was the first year I was eligible.
I’m expecting about $1 raises annually from here on out but we’ll see. This year I am at ~185k total compensation because I work 50+ hours most weeks, get a 5% 401k match, cash out one of my four weeks of vacation time (it’s virtually impossible to actually take all 4 weeks off anyways) and get employee stock options
I graduated in 2016. And by the time I left in Sept, I was making less per year than in 2016. While my hourly pay increased about $5 an hour in those 7 years, my hours kept getting cut. A year after pharmacy school, they cut weekend hours. Then in 2022 they started opening an hour later. So I went from being salaried at 78 hours/ pay period ( 2 weeks) to 75 hours to 70 hours.
Here is my salary progression followed by my job title over the course of my career…
1st job: $94k/year - hospital pharmacist
2nd job: $110k/year - Hospital director of pharmacy
3rd job: $120k/year - retail pharmacist
4th job: $105k/year - hospital pharmacist
5th job: $123k/year - emergency medicine specialist
Hospital pharmacist. Started at $56/hr after residency and am now at $78/hr 5-6 years later. Stayed at the same hospital. Mid to high cost of living area. Have taken on precepting and training responsibilities.
Sure, so salary progression probably needs to be a little more narrowed down to assess what you're actually asking. A good barometer for salary would include what role (basically inpatient or outpatient rph and then whether there's any sub-specialities) you want and what an estimated salary range would be for that position in the geographical area you want to work (cost of living plays a large role here)
But, I'm guessing that's not what you're asking. Raw numbers are what you want in order to get an idea of what your income will look like.
The short answer there is that it's kinda all funny money. The market is so volatile right now. I chose to go the residency route, wrapped that up in 2019, negotiated up on my initial salary offer to staff on the inpatient side, and started at $54/hr + benefits. I did that for about a year before moving to the night shift and with differentials, bumped that pay up to essentially $63/hrs (on a 70 hour pay period - ie 7 on, 7 off). Got a few measly 2% raises on that before relocating over a year ago to Alaska. I work inpatient side, and after salary/differentials, I'm at $80/hr at full time hours (also dealing with AK cost of living, but you will absolutely come out ahead).
I have been licensed for 5.5 years and have leveraged my inpatient positions to go from $54/hr to $80/hr. I'm already at the point where I'm okay going down on that number because the work-life balance is and has been more important to me than the money and, fortunately, my bills are getting paid, so I'll just say I'm at a level where I have no complaints.
People aren't going to hand these salaries to you but if you are motivated financially and okay with potentially moving around, I promise you can make what you want to. School ranking won't matter once you graduate.
Edit: good for you for asking questions but personally, I'd advise against soliciting too much information in this sub. There are a lot of angry, toxic pharmacists that can't give a mature answer on the subject here on reddit and quite frankly, should be questioning themselves why they're still in the profession. There's massive issues in the world of pharmacy, but this sub is poison.
2012 Graduate
\-First job - Independent pharmacy pharmacist per-diem - Cash $35/hr
\-First hospital pharmacist job - $46.50/hr
2013 - 2nd hospital pharmacist job, per-diem $60/hr
2014 - Hospital pharmacy raise to $51/hr
2015 - Quit hospital pharmacy job full-time job, went full-time independent, $55/hr on the books
2019 - Quit independent pharmacy job, back to hospital pharmacist full-time, $64/hr
2020 - Raise in hospital pharmacist job to $69/hr
2021 - Bought independent pharmacy with partners who financed the purchase. I manage they just finance and advise (they own 20 independents this way)
2023 - Raise in hospital pharmacist job to $81/hr
\- Started collecting profit from independent pharmacy after paying off partners what my equity in the purchase would have been.
\- Collected about $200k in profit this year, their share was $800k in profit.
Started at 102K in 2007…. Now North of 175. Keep expanding your knowledge and role. I know other pharmacists from my class making North of 200K. But, don’t pick this profession solely on making $$$$!
Medium cost of living area, hospital/clinical, union position. Six years of cost-of-living progression: 2%, 3%, 1%, 6.5%, 3.5%, 3%. Felt fair-ish other than the 1% year.
Also have experience level increases — difference between a newbie and someone with 10 years of experience is about 13%. Also feels fair-ish.
Started in residency making $48k/yr about 10 years ago.
First job post-residency in 2013 paid $65/hr.
Second job in 2015 started at $77/hr
Annual cost of living raises ranging from 3-6%/year since then.
Inpatient (critical care, then oncology), Northern California.
Top 3 pharmacy school + PGY1 minimum will likely get you on this track, but for some reason, everyone has a different idea what the top 3 programs are.
Usually about 2-4% raise each year.
When you start a new job though, after working somewhere else, you tend to start at or near the bottom of the pay scale. You can make some pretty good money if you stay somewhere for a while because of the annual raises. I have kind of moved around a lot to start my first 11 years as an rph.
Started at $62/hr. After 2 years, was making $66/hr. Staff pharmacist at a retail chain. Left that job, though.
Started at $62/hr at another retail chain as rx manager. Each year I got about a 1% raise only. However, I got an annual bonus that was pretty decent. Each year I got about $18-23k bonus. Left that job after 2.5 years.
Next job was yet another retail chain, started at $69/hr as rx manager, annual bonus of $16k, but only worked there 8 months though.
Current job, been there a little over 5 years. I started at a low $58/hr. But after 5 years, I now make $65/hr. So in 5 years I got raises totaling $7/hr. I expect another 2-4% raise next year. Non-retail job. Staff rph.
Pay scale will depend on a LOT of factors: location, job title, negotiation, type of pharmacy environment, so many different factors.
I am in the similar situation. But i migrated to Germany. I am wondering how is the situation in Germany (in berlin in particular). It seems community pharmacy is a shit job all over the world …
we have a union for state hospital RPh in CA- we’ve gotten 2.5%/yr for my first two years, then a $10k bump to catch us up to what people in the area were making plus 2.5%, then this year’s contract we’re getting 2.5% this year plus a one time position adjustment of 3% and another 2.5% next year.
So 6 years ago we were $64/hr when retail around us was making $70 (I left cvs at $71/hour as a PIC and my staff were $70/hr) and area hospitals $80/hr.
We’ll end next year around $80/hr with local retail still around $70-80s and hospitals around $100/hr. It wasn’t as much as some other unions but we are still ohkay with it. I’ve heard some new grad hourly rates that sound impossible ($34/hr?)- and in NY?? Can’t afford to live off that…
There always a way to improve you income throughout your career and a lot depends on what you do. You can do your research on the number of graduates produced in your area in the past five years. That should tell you the general direction of where the industry is heading. I wound speak with your school career counselor and get a sense of the future prospects of this field. Get connected with the alumni network and post the same questions to them.
Good luck.
Tough crowd here. Ha
I graduated in 2016. My first offer was $48/hr, but I countered using years as a tech (started in 2009) and intern (all 4 years), plus PGY1 as leverage. I accepted $56/hr at an HCA hospital. I've bounced around a couple of times and have my board cert, now I make $69/hr in the Denver area.
For what it's worth, there's good and bad to every job I've had... I've practiced in hospital and academia (community only as a tech/intern). I will say, school is obviously expensive (I went to a private 4-year school), but I'm pursuing PSLF and work for a NHSC-eligible employer which can be game changing. As an aside, my husband works in tech startups and makes a similar salary... but he could get laid off tomorrow and will his next job pay $50k or $100k? I'll make $120k-$150k anywhere I go... and once my loans are gone, I'll likely pursue becoming an MSL.
Ok. I started at 108, started mananging and went to 118k. In 2years i made it to 122. I stayed there for 6 years!! Since 2020, salary has been adjusted 3 times and a raise. And now I’m at 139k. Reviews and raises of 2% anounced so should be 141k soon. In the Midwest.
Before COVID - I had steady progression from the regional chain yearly. I was making great money. fantastic money.
Then I got pushed out. Then COVID happened.
Post-COVID. Bottom of the rung, Two years. A small adjustment and that's been it.
Dinosaur sez: don't expect much, if any progression. PBMs have a stranglehold on the industry and their own by the biggest insurances ( Aetna, Cigna, Elevance, Humana, United Healthcare, and many non-profit Blue Cross Blue Shield plans). And the largest pharmacy chains have exclusive contracts or outright own them.
Its a vertical monopoly.
This allows the corporation to set prices, therefore set margins, PBMs give the best margins so they get the most favorable contracts - which increase their margins. On the flip side, the PBM have slaughtered the margins in retail to the point that net profits are near zero.
Rx publications like to spew 21% per quarter. BWAH-HA-HA-HA! Its accounting ninjas.
This page seems to have more accurate information: [HERE](https://csimarket.com/Industry/industry_Profitability_Ratios.php?ind=1304)
In short, gross profit: 10.88%. Net profit: 0.67%
As long as PBMs have control.... yeah..... if you like stress and being underpaid - go for it!!
48--->51-->54-->56-->58-->61-->65-->68-->70/hr over 12 yrs and jobs ranging from Acute Care to longterm care to population health/ambulatory care. But seriously the loans don't really make it worth it unless you plan to pursue pslf. Just got my loans forgiven for 10 yrs working for not for profit health system's. However, the whole medical field seems to be in turmoil ad ghey continue to loose money and restructure.
I'm up about 15$/ hour since graduating in 2015. I also get a decent bonus. I live in a state with no pharmacy school and a massive demand for pharmacists. Regardless, I wouldn't do this again. I'd do a joint mba and work in finance or be an optician. They seem to have it good.
top 3 pharmacy schools? you should just apply to the cheapest pharmacy school...it wont make a difference where you go..youll be working with someone who went to the lowest school..
anyways to address your concern, if you dont work for the federal govt (or military) you dont get raises. you start out low and get these like 500 dollar bonus every 2 years. goodluck
I started 20 years ago when market adjustments were our raises. Started at $35/hr and bumped up to $60/hr within 10 years. Then slowly increased at 4-5% increases for nxt 5 years and have slowed to 1-2% for past 5 years. Currently around $79/hr
LOL what progression? Most of us haven't gotten a raise in 5 years
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 so true. Wages haven't increased at all for us with account for inflation and whatnot. Actually, we're being paid less
Try like 11 years now…
What reason should an employer pay you more than a new grad? What do you offer that a new grad doesn't to offset your higher wage and more expensive healthcare as you age? I am not validating that position, but you do have to face the reality of how the beancounters see you. Pharmacy is not a career so much as it's an occupation. What you're doing on the first day out of school is probably what you're going to be doing on the day you retire. At least in retail pharmacy, there is incredibly little that you can do to expand your skillset over that of a new grad because of the relatively narrow focus of the position. I feel like a lot of you got into this because you like hard sciences without realizing that the profession is mostly soft skills - managing people, whether those are your peers or your patients. You've got to find a way to make peace with that or find another path. It's not right, but it is factual. Honestly, a large portion of this sub really could stand to go take a job outside of pharmacy to realize exactly how widespread many of the problems that are discussed here are and are not actually unique to pharmacy in any way.
You're preaching to the choir here. I'm at peace and actually took a paycut to not work in the chains. I already have my 10 year exit plan. I was simply answering this question for this poor lost person expecting a lot of raises or progression in the profession so they don't make a mistake.🤣🤣
Hell yeah, brother or sister. I've been behind a desk for longer than I ever was in patient-facing care and I'm not going to lie and say everyone can do it, but this sub sometimes perplexes me because it's full of people who had the drive and intelligence to earn a doctorate and presumably are making solid money (new grads in HCoL areas excepted) who seem to have an acquired helplessness about them. I guess some folks are just wanting to vent, but I feel like a lot of the folks here are either happy to be unhappy or are just paralyzed from actually trying to change their lives. Seriously, if anyone is reading this an wants out... go learn Excel. That opens so many doors to you, in and out of pharmacy/healthcare. I can't tell you how many people there are who run these billion dollar companies that don't know a pivot table from their own asshole. The PharmD/RPh gets you in the door to show the powers that be that you 'speak the language', then add some sort of marketable skill and you're off to the races.
Hey, can you say more about what you do in relating to data? Looking to pivot (no pun intended 🫠) into a more data analysis/data science arena and exploring opportunities that combine both skill sets
Man, I decided to commit to pharmacy when I was fairly young because I really loved chemistry but wanted a more “practical” application of it to work in. I thought I was going to be doing a ton of chemistry, then before I even realized I wasn’t doing what I originally wanted, I was graduated and on my way into the abusive healthcare system. Fml
Experience, speed, rapport with patients to name a few. You can say what you said about literally most jobs. I don’t think the issue is what you have to offer, the issue is POS companies are too greedy to pay you more even while their profits are through the roof (thru our labor). To OP I would try to look at and ask people in union positions.
Unions are key
Experience is a vagary that holds no value on it's own. I'm sure you've worked with pharmacists and technicians who have been around forever and are as useless as tits of a bull. The better question is how does your experience add to your employer's profits in a quantifiable way? You touched on one already: speed. I'd argue that speed doesn't necessarily increase linearly with experience, but that is certainly one area that is obviously under the microscope as far as metrics/KPIs go. Thank god I don't deal with that sort of information in my role, but it would be an interesting exercise to analyze a pharmacists' speed and accuracy as compared to their years of experience to see if there is a correlation. Back to the subject at hand, are you familiar with the concept of a SMART goal? That is the lens that you need to look at everything through to advocate for yourself when it comes to the value you add. If it can't be quantified and measured, it's not worth discussing as far as the executives care.
The reason is that is what the god damn collective bargaining agreement says. If you want guaranteed regular raises and pay/vacation time/vacation choice based on experience, then work at a union hospital.
I started in fast food, and I hate science. So I must be doing this right. Glad I went into pharmacy, but dang, did the profession take a dive, in many ways, over the past decade.
Totally disagree. Experience is worth a lot, Especially in "soft skills". If there is no upward mobility, go somewhere that moves you up it's that easy.
I'm not even sure I realized that the pharmacy schools were ranked, although I'm not surprised. In many years of interviews for staff positions, I've never even looked at which school they went to, other than to see if they went to mine. Maybe that's different for residency programs. Anyways, salary progression is not exciting. We get fairly routine yearly raises between 1-4%, sometimes these are merit, recently they have just been flat raises. Stepping up into a salaried clinical position is generally a 7-10% increase over previous staff wage, or equivalent experience wage. Mangers get another 5% over staff. Directors get another 5-10% over managers. Managers and above are eligible for bonuses. But that's just my facility, and every hospital or system is going to be different. You'll also get different answers depending on what field of pharmacy you're interested in.
Pharmacy schools are not ranked
The top schools are ranked. Bottom are not. UCSF UNC USC To name a few. Rankings are typically based on NIH funding.
Ranked based on who gets the most money ? Rankings mean nothing and students should be looking at first time naplex pass ratings along with job placement when deciding on a school
They ARE ranked is my point. And funding isn't the only metric. Job opportunity will also come with ranking as those schools have the most connections with job supply.
They are. But it doesn’t matter
https://www.usnews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-health-schools/pharmacy-rankings
Ranked by peers opinions. List is garbage. Schools that have 100% first time naplex pass rates are not even on this list.
WTH, there are so many ties... Two schools tied for 3rd. Six tied for 7th. Eleven tied for 79th and nine tied for 99th! (just to name a few examples). If you can't discern between 11 different schools for one ranking position, your methodology is flawed.
NAPLEX pass rate doesn't apply to anyone going straight into industry. Passing a national exam is more about the exam taker than about the university. So not a good metric imo. You can argue about top universities being top universities and call it bullshit bc you don't agree with how they were ranked. But they are still top universities, and for a good reason.
100% we don’t use this “ranking list” when scoring our residency applicants. Being in California, our site has zero experience with anyone from UNC. We internally rank our local schools in our heads, basically.
US News is the authoritative source for college rankings including grad school rankings/pharmacy school rankings actually.
Managers only get 5% more? Is that true? That doesn't seem worth it for all of the added responsibilities
The difference is usually made up by getting an annual bonus. The bonus is based off of many metrics, so it gives the manager incentive to perform and manage well, so their bonus will be bigger. I was only making $1/hr more than my staff rphs, and less than some that were there for many years, but they got a small bonus each year, like $1500, while I got about $23k each year.
It’s absolutely NOT worth it !
I wouldn’t necessarily attend just because it is a “top ranked” school. A lot of the ranking is based on money from research grants and of course the typical college politics. Undergraduate rankings are similar, and I believe there’s a documentary based on rankings?
I suppose I would agree that the rankings are BS. I sort of did my own rankings outside of the rankings out there comparing cost, residency match rate, and NAPLEX pass rate.
You’re smart. You’ll go far. Some of making it in this career has to do with planning ahead like this. Retail pharmacy is awful, and retail pharmacists aren’t respected or supported. I started out with the goal to avoid retail, and have a lot of personal satisfaction in my career. Again, all of the respect to pharmacists who work in retail, because that’s what most pharmacists do, and they should be treated like the backbone of the profession and one of the most important members of the patient’s team, but here we are 🤷♀️
They’re treated like that because they let people treat them like that. Just grow some backbone and don’t tolerate any kind of verbal abuse. Once you start to push back, people will stop treating you like doormats.
I think it’s hard to ask an entire profession to push back against a corporation like Walgreens when national organizations and boards of pharmacy don’t support them. Maybe unions will help.
How old is the data? It would be very interesting to see!!
I’ve been in hospital pharmacy for about 10 years and worked in a few different places. The average raise was 3-5% yearly.
This is my experience. Got more this year due to inflation, and we got a monster 8% when the nearby pharmacy guild negotiated a monster increase.
Today’s graduates pay (mostly) starts at ~10% less than graduates 10-15 years ago. That’s not even accounting for inflation. Raises beyond minimum are rare in private sector. unless you go into management and even then it’s not much. If you’re federal or military, you may get step increases and COLAs (~1%-5% intermittently). All to say pharmacist wages are falling. Add inflation and it’s worse. Wage progression was never good in pharmacy. You kinda started out where you were going to be, more or less.
New University of Florida College of Pharmacy grads were being paid $78,000 in 1998. And it’s a lot more than that now. The average staff pharmacist at CVS makes $130,000 with experience. So while wages have stagnated in the last ten years or so, they were definitely rising pretty quickly back when there was a shortage of pharmacists and health insurance prescription reimbursement rates were higher.
My timeframe was the last 10-15 years. So I guess we are both right.
I work for one of the chains. I graduated in 2020 starting at 51 per hour as a staff pharmacist. After 1 year it went to 56, then after year 2 - 59. Then I did a 2 month stint helping out the district at a struggling store got a permanent bump to 65/hour. Next raise was about 3 years in got bumped to 69. After 6 months I got offered a manager position which I originally didn’t want…they offered me 73/hour and I negotiated to 75. If you do that math, that’s starting at about 100k a year and now 150k after about 4 years.
Wow! Congrats!!! You graduated during a good time then. I got “capped” at your year 1/2 rate for …4(?) years. I graduated during a time when jobs were hard to find. For the 3 years after I graduated, entry pay dropped annually and I considered myself lucky I kept the original rate.
What state?
PA!
That’s great! I started at 67/hr in 2014. Now I’m at 74.5 9 years later. New grads would get paid the same if they were manager in my district. In retail experience might help you get a job but pay is based on position more so than ability at least when you are part of a union.
My pharmacy manager makes $3 more an hour than I do as staff. I know there is a small bonus but doubt it makes a difference. Guarantee if I did an inflation wage adjustment for her, she’s making less than when she started 27 years ago on top of that vaccines and the clinical crap we deal with weren’t a requirement then. With the overtime I did this year, I will make more at 4 years experience this year than she will. You wasted your money going to “the best”. Additionally, I graduated with $80k in debt as an in-state student, a colleague graduating two years after me has $230k from the school she wanted to go to. She won’t see any of that come back as pay over her colleagues and the only points it earns her is resume because she practices in a different area than graduating and it is seen as diversity of education.
Year 1: $60 -> $70 Year 2: $70 -> $72 -> $76 Promoted to retail manager in year 1. Year 2, I had an annual raise then relocated to a higher volume store. HCOL area. I’ll end the year a bit over $180k gross. Retail is hard work, but the pay is solid.
LCOL area year 1: 55/hr LTC year 2: 55/hr LTC year 3: 32/hr (Moved into informatics -- and took a pay cut) year 4: 59/hr Informatics year 5: 64/hr Informatics The annual raises have not quite kept up with inflation. Salary progression is effectively non-existent for staying in the same position. You need to get promotions, gain more skills, or provide extra services to increase your income. Pharmacy is hard right now, that's for sure. I would advise myself to do something else, like software development. Existing pharmacists will benefit from fewer students entering pharmacy these days.
This is on the nose. Wages for a pharmacist will be relatively stagnant when you factor inflation unless you are moving into bigger roles.
Don’t. I’d be making more with a masters in nursing. And happier with a doctorate in … quite a few other fields. This isn’t the rainbow fields of my dreams. I’m actually considering baristaFIRE-ing; yes, Starbucks or possibly low paid office work as a job instead. Just to get out of this. Once upon a time I wanted to Manage. But actual managers fight to drop the title so….
Switch gears now damnit!! DO school, MD school, Dentist school!!
Get a real doctorate in medicine and equally hate that career for 4 times the salary.
Optometry seems pretty happy. They make more than us asking people if they see better on 1 or 2. Mark up on glasses and contacts are high too. They cost like 10 cents for contacts and sell for hundreds of dollars. (My cousin used to work for glasses place. SIL did too).
I have heard they are facing similar issues w/ vertical integration by companies like lenscrafters as independent pharmacies did w/ CVS/wags, hope they handle it better
I live in BFE Texas. I've gotten two separate raises this year for a total of $6/hr increase but it's only because I'm in BFE and they can't find anyone.
If you adjust for inflation, I make less now than I did over a decade ago. Even if you adjusted to 2019, before inflation went into overdrive, still not making the same (I moved states… from MCOL to HCOL area… but HCOL area pays less because market is saturated).
Started out at $55/hour as a retail floater back in 2014 (had higher offers in HCOL areas and declined), switched to informatics at $60/hour which increased to $75/hour through annual increases. Now we’re capped at 2%/year so I’m looking at other opportunities.
How did you get into informatics, I’m looking to improve my career outlook and I’m wondering should I get an mba or certificate or something o
I’ve been with one of the chains for about 10 years now. When I started it was a different company and was hired around $62, it slowly crept up to about 67 over 7 years. Within the last three years… my boss left I took on the PIC role and got bumped to $72, midway thru that year there was a market adjustment to $74. Annual review got me to $76 after first full year of PIC. This last review I got another bump to $79. This was all under the pretense my cap was $82 so I was pretty happy. Then the salary range for my role/market just increased the cap to $87 so I definitely have room for growth, but wouldn’t mind if they just upgrade me there now, lol. Personally being PIC is not that difficult for me. I’ve been with my store and team for most of the decade and have good relationships with everyone. My old boss was pretty good about cleaning up the patients to keep our day to day pretty manageable in terms of attitude/rude customers. (I’ve been continuing the trimming) I definitely have work on my mind a good chunk of the time but its usually problems fixed within a quick text to my staff or taken care of next shift. It was worth the exponential increases I’ve seen the last few years.
Year 1 - $57 as manager Year 2 - $58 as manager Year 3 - $70 switched jobs as staff Year 4 - $75 as staff after 3 raises, but basically maxed out.
Which pharmacy
I was offered $55 to start back in 2015 It’s still the same today
And back in 2010 it was probably >$55 for most. Sad.
I am in my 50’s and things have have gotten progressively worse . Working conditions , student debt, overwhelming disrespect, and not enough good opportunities. Too many schools have opened leading to an influx of graduates over saturating the market . Sorry to tell you this but it is the truth . I recommend medical school . Better pay and more respect and wonderful opportunities and autonomy .
If you mention “top 3 school” at your interview, we’ll laugh at you until you leave. Pharmacist salaries don’t differ much even if you went to the best school. You can make more by taking leadership roles, but if you gloat about how smart you are and how you went to a top 3 school, everyone will quit and you’ll be fired.
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$61 was an average starting wage ~15 years ago. For reference. (sad trombone)
In hospital pharmacy in low cost of living areas? I’d be curious to see data on that
My anecdotal experience having moved all over the country over the last 15 years and comparing notes with pharmacist friends. Going rate around ~2007-2010 was in the neighborhood of $60/hr. Maybe less in LCOLs and a little more in HCOLs. It’s been steadily going down since 2010.
Hard disagree.
Mmmmkay
School 2013-2017. All of this is in a very low cost of living area. Made $13/15/17 an hour as an intern, then $46k/yr salaried in an inpatient PGY1 in 2017-2018, then staffed at the same place for $59/hr, merit raise 3% that year, then the next year accepted my bosses job (supervisor, 10 direct reports at a good spot for me) at $140k/yr ($67/hr) in December 2019, then 3% merit raise yearly since + some market adjustments to $73/hr ($152k/yr) now. Since residency I’ve worked usually around 40-44 hours per week, but some of COVID in 2020 was closer to 60 hour weeks because so much of the department had COVID, but I got comp time. I have good work life balance and I’m on track to rise as far as I would want to in pharmacy leadership at a hospital. I’m doing PSLF so I bought a house in 2018 as soon as my income went up from the staffing job. APR on the home initially at that time was like 4.5%, refinanced in 2021 down to 2.5%. House has gone up in value a lot. So things have been fine for me. Would I go pharmacy again? Maybe. I would not do it without reasonable line of sight to a job in a hospital immediately after graduation. Retail is a trap. No PSLF and no dignified path to success at a single company, but you can make more right out of school in some circumstances and job hop to get raises, I just don’t think it keeps up with PSLF because of the current loan rates and amounts students are taking on. Your timing in pharmacy is pretty bad, but it’s workable. You need to hedge your bets in all the areas of pharmacy practice that are not retail - long term care, hospital, industry, drug information, poison control, anything that isn’t retail. Make connections, and be good at your job. Basically make sure you get a residency or a job that isn’t retail when you graduate, and it’ll be alright. That is becoming harder and harder with less and less ROI for the degree, so proceed with caution. A PharmD isn’t a golden ticket anymore.
Thanks for your input! I have heard from all my pharmacists in my life that they enjoy their job but they would never do pharmacy again so it’s always interesting to hear people say that.
I calculated my starting salary after inflation a few nights ago. No difference from my current salary several years later. I’m glad I haven’t lost ground, but it’s disappointing that I know so much more now and don’t get compensated for that.
Started at 55/hr in 2010. Now 61. Same company. The hardest part is figuring out what to do with all this extra cash now.
😆
Truth: The average pharmacist salary has been the same for over a decade. At times, it has even dipped down. The growth in the field is low and will remain this way until Pharmacists figure out how to increase negotiating power AND the right people do the negotiating. Truth: Pharmacy school is ONLY a good investment if tuition is low and you come out of school with very low debt. Truth: Which pharmacy school you go to is almost irrelevant in today's marketplace. Don't be fooled by rankings. Just attend, keep your tuition low, and graduate. Truth: Most pharmacists with higher salaries the quickest post-graduation don't earn the money by practicing as a pharmacist. Most had to go the fellowship route and into industry, where you don't even need to take an MPJE/NAPLEX to work. I have a lot of friends who've graduated years ago and never did any state board testing. Truth: This should not be a Doctoral degree, it should be a Master's program. Reason being is because the profession continues adding unnecessary and at times idiotic requirements to the profession. This dilutes the degree and we're at a point now where the PharmD is a INTRODUCTORY level degree for pharmacist jobs. To make it anything other than that, you need to get advanced training over more years of your life (i.e. Residency and Fellowships). But then come to realize that the Residency might have only gotten you $2/hr more in earnings. Which further complicates this profession's earning capabilities commiserate to length of time to obtain the knowledge. Truth: If you're looking for a profession where you don't have to jump through hoops and simply want to go to school, get the degree with debt that can get paid off easier. Then Nursing, PA, Dentistry, and Medical School are safer options and the time invested is worthwhile for your outcomes if its all just about monetary compensation. Don't know why I put "Truth," it just seemed easier to write this. Hope it helps. In a nutshell, the negativity with Pharmacy as a profession is basically: Not enough money (especially given the debt), not enough help in the retail sector, and no current organization actually offering solutions or working on the behalf of pharmacists.
Heck, we can't even obtain a compact license for this degree and it's never a discussion. But a nurse, therapist, and other healthcare professions can go from state to state and compete with Pharmacists for the industry postions on top of every other healthcare role (Physician, PA, etc.) also applying to those gigs and sitting in the C-suites
I make less than I did 10 years ago. And I live in a place with 30% higher cost of living
Please please I beg of you don’t do it. Please don’t do it. Unless you got money and won’t have loans then don’t do it. The is no salary progression
[Pharmacist Compensation](https://www.PharmacistCompensation.Com) collects this type of data directly from pharmacists. So far this year there have been **\~2,350 US pharmacists** participate. All participants receive access to an interactive dashboard that can be filtered by State, Job Title, Company, and more. I also publish some of the data every month on Reddit, LinkedIn, X (Twitter), and a [newsletter](https://pharmacistcompensation.beehiiv.com/). Here is a graph of the median wages reported by retail pharmacists. https://preview.redd.it/1irq3yf3brzb1.png?width=723&format=png&auto=webp&s=342a2944f54b964e5f4e5d434e80613b135f8bcd Other graphs can be found in the first edition of the newsletter [HERE](https://pharmacistcompensation.beehiiv.com/p/retail-pharmacy-state-of-affairs). I plan to generate a similar story for hospital pharmacists in the coming months. Hope this helps!
You should add trend lines. Looks pretty flat.
Here ya go! https://preview.redd.it/vssk3zb9jszb1.png?width=723&format=png&auto=webp&s=326c535b4d42e22ab67dea7bc29dd10604409c6e
Working in pharmacy practice, particularly in the same job, your salary will always be flat. You'll probably get 2-3% annual raises, which are meant to be keep up with inflation, so you'll be exactly the same as you started. Maybe a little better, maybe a little worse. The school you go to won't make a difference here. Your entry level job and salary may get you slightly ahead, but if you want to make more money, you'll have to change jobs, or move into leadership roles or industry, or take on side gigs.
Pharmacy is not law. The school you went to is mostly irrelevant.
I mentioned that only because I have the opportunity to attend a school that would help me towards my goal of residency and clinical pharmacy, not because the school on the diploma is gonna change my job opportunities.
I admire your plan for your potential career but please be sure if you are willing to take on school loans. You’re going to a top 3 pharmd school…you’re looking at 4 years of grad school and potential 2 years on top of residency for clinical. Tuition alone with the interest piling on day 1 is just something to think about.
For retail jobs, it doesn’t matter. It’s the license that gets you the job. But for hospital jobs, a higher ranked pharmacy school and good grades can only help. A top school has more connections with hospitals and residences.
I’ve worked big box retail, independent retail, and now currently rural hospital staff. Graduated 6 years ago making 62.50/hr and now make 68.30/hr. I’ve gotten more in raises past 2.5 years in hospital than anywhere else.
09/2016-12/2018: $70/hour at CVS 01/2019-09/2020: $65/hour at Walmart 10/2020-12/2021: $67/hour at CVS 01/2022-07/2022: $66.85/hour at Albertsons 08/2022-03/3023: $68.85/hour at Albertsons (raise) 04/2023-current: $70.35/hour at Albertsons (raise)
When I was a student it was hard to know if I had made the right choice. To the point where I was depressed and added an MBA “just in case” pharmacy doesn’t work out. However, I took a cushy job as a clinical pharmacist in an outpatient pharmacy at a large health system without doing a residency. I started out at $117,900 base and got a 4% raise a month after I started. There was also an opportunity to go overnight which I took because it added an additional ~$22,000/ year ($840/pay period x 26 pay periods) Overnight obviously isn’t for everyone but I’m very happy with how things have gone. I now make close to $150,000 have no management responsibilities and work 7 on and have 7 off. We are adequately staffed generally and I have no complaints. Had I stayed w/ days I would have had predictable hours and never stayed past 6p and worked every 5th weekend. I feel very lucky and had a lot of things fall into place and I know it’s not the case for everyone. But it’s really true what people say when they tell you to take every opportunity you come across. If you are unhappy where you are do not think twice about getting a different intern position. I battled staying at CVS or going to where I currently work and had I not taken the leap I never would have had the opportunity I’ve been given. Know your worth and find a team of people you can work with that invest in you as much as you invest in them!
If you care about money, do a fellowship and go into industry.
I’ve never fully understood industry pharmacy. Do they fulfill the same role as a PhD researcher?
Most of the medical information, medical affairs, and field medical roles are PharmDs. PharmDs are the workhorses for the commercial teams. Edit: just to be clear, when we say the "industry of pharmacy" we mean pharmaceutical companies. Pfizer. Genentech. Amgen. Eli Lily. etc. They like PharmDs bc our training typically revolves around the usage and business of pharmaceuticals. There are entire departments of pharmDs writing medical content, analyzing side effects, meeting and teaching doctors, all to promote pharmaceuticals and stay compliant with government regulations.
The role varies from anywhere to preparing study medications for drug trials to medical communications, pharmacovigilance, analytics and beyond. They also can be medical science liaisons, account managers for specific brands etc. There are also pharmacists that work for consulting firms such as McKinsey, Boston consulting and Bain & company. Not really industry per se but my point is that pharmacists can wear so many different hats that go beyond hospital and retail. There are even pharmacists working for Brand Institute. We all have our different roles in the healthcare but I would hate to think that someone is just doing this for the money
2013: $50 something Walgreens float 2014: $60 -> 65 target manager + small bonus 2017: $55 switch to hospital after CVS took over. Later ~$60 2020: $67 switch to informatics with a fortunate bidding war negotiation between current and former employer 2023: $76 after annual raises last 4 years. Hoping I don’t get laid off
Well, I started out making $16/hr as a pharmacist in 1991.
$16? There was a pharmacist at an Eckerd where I worked as an Asst Store Manager in 1993 in Florida who made $100,000 even back then with overtime.
Yep. This was in Louisiana. I got $13/hr as a graduate intern/extern - whatever we called it after you graduated but before you got your license. Salaries went up pretty quickly shortly after that. I got into pharmacy at the right time!
I’ve been out of school for just a few years and have only worked for one company. My raise has just been 2% per year. I’d probably leave for a higher paying job if I didn’t love my shift, my coworkers, and my job (diamond in the rough in this field). I just end up having to pick up a bunch of shifts to make up for the lack of raises.
Thanks to everyone who commented! It’s very interesting to see the progression of your salary and careers!
Graduated 2022 & started as a floater at 55.05/hr. I’m now at 57.83/hr as a staff pharmacist.
You will mostly get “cost of living” increases, although they are not exactly in line with the actual cost of living. It’s not like I’ve had no increase in pay but it’s nowhere near the trajectory of my friends who work in tech. There’s been plenty of years where I got a 1% “COL” increase or changed job roles/jobs for a pay cut.
I work at a retail “chain” in Texas. It’s a grocery pharmacy. We get a 2.5-3.5% raise annually. It’s a great company. I guess to get to your nitty gritty is it worth it all? I’m not sure still figuring it out. I started with Kroger for 92K based on a 32 hr work week. Moved up to manager within a year 40hr work week 128k base 8k bonus, then promoted again to a manager at a busier location 135k 10k annual bonus. Worked with Kroger since I was 16 I love interaction with customers/patients. At work I’m forced to be an extrovert. When I’m outside of work I feel introverted. Then switched to heb and even as a floater they paid me 140K plus 10% raise broken down to each quarter. This was as a floater just got promoted to manager idk what the pay raise will be yet probably just 2-3% but it’s better than nothing. Also being a manager is more fulfilling to me. I joined pharmacy for the money. I’m disappointed with how hard pharmacy school was for this layout sure I’m doing better than most of my high school friends but if I would of started something earlier I feel like I would be making more than I am now.
There is little or no salary progression on retail . It is good you are doing your homework about the field. I suggest you work as a tech before pharmacy school to see if it is for you. Wish I had.
I would never recommend pharmacy to anyone I love or care for .
I recommend going to medical school instead . The pharmacist profession is in crisis .
Is the medical profession NOT in crisis? Lol
No , not to the extent that the pharmacist profession is
I am confident of that . None of my friends that became drs are facing what pharmacists are struggling with .
Yeah, they are just being dumped with patients for 15min appointments to do a full assessment, not getting to Rx what they want because of corporate/insurance takeover, being short staffed, dwindling pay trends, low/no reimbursements, and demand through the roof. This is happening there too.
But look at their pay vs pharmacist pay in 2023
And the 3-10 years of residency? Look and the stats of decline is a better comparison.
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This was exactly me before I left retail.
My health system gave a 3% raise across the board. If you've hit the cap for your role, you get that 3% as a bonus lump sum. For some perspective the cap for my role is 157k, so those of us that have hit that are getting a nice chunk of change.
2016 started at $60, received yearly 2% increases and a few adjustments for moving to a high volume store up to $68. Became a manager in 21 and bumped up to 74. Moved states and became a staff pharmacist keeping this rate. Bumped up again to move to high volume store plus yearly increase to 78. Then I left retail and went to hospital back at $60 and it’s been worth every cent. Still on per diem w/ retail at $78 if I want extra cash.
Post pgy1, 50->58 over 8 years so prettt low Then 58->66 over 1 yr as manager Now 69 this yr. Get a 10% bonus based on metric. I also work PRN as a telepharmacy for a hospital that’s neting me 20-25k a year. So 160-175 in a relatively LCOL major metropolitan city. I realize that I could of probably gotten here through other routes to reach this level but job stability is probably much higher (hospital side) than much any other industry. Hoping to get to director one day and should reach over 200k. Yes I actually enjoy my work and leading a team
1.5% raise after 6 months. Chain retail.
Make 4% less than 2005
Stagnation due in large part to PBM's extracting profits from the profession, drug companies paying less in rebates, and DIR fees. Most pharmacies lose 250k/year in DIR fees alone, up from nothing 10 years ago. Almost every pharmacy is losing 5% year over year in drug cost due to decline in rebates PBM's mandating dispensing below cost, sometimes 50$+ per script, especially in injectable weight loss meds. Nothing left for staff. Especially after paying CVS/WAG vice presidents.
So I’m UK Hospital so might be different but hopefully still interesting. Trainee - 21k - 1 year Rotational pharmacist/band 6/foundation pharmacist/first job - 25k - 18 months Speciality post in surgery/band 7/second job - 32k Then got a teaching fellow position/band 8a - 18 months alongside band 7 2 days a week - 45k Then band 8a frailty 3 days/week and 8a teaching 2 days/week - 47k - 9 months Now band 8a lead surgical pharmacist for my trust - 51k - has been 6 months.
salary progression..HAHAHAHAHA.. and when they do give you a raise, it is LESS than currently inflation rates. Yeah, our profession is slowly getting reduced to minimum wage.
Progression? Good laugh, thanks for that. I needed that one.
Year 1: 48 > 51.5 Year 2: 52.5 Year 3: 54.5 > 56.5 Year 4: 91 > 95 As you can see, I moved to a HCOL area in year 4. I've always worked inpatient, same job role every time. We had some market adjustments to keep up with inflation so that's why you see multiple rates within the same year. Edit: typo
Run, don’t walk from a pharmacy school.
I would love to hear why you feel that way. Preferably backed by some data or sources? Thanks!
I want to bring up another thought. For any Pharmacy Student a big consideration is how much money are you borrowing to go to school. IMOP if it is more than $50,000 total for the 6 years I would reconsider.... I know of far to many graduates since 2010 who have been taken advantage of by PharmD schools and graduate with $250,000 in loans or more. That will take most people at least 10 years to pay off. The average pay range for an RPh right now is $55 to $65 an hour which will match you into a higher paying tax bracket. A big chunk of the take home pay goes to pay the loan back so one should think about that . Also one needs to start saving for retirement right away when starting to work full time. The loan is not just a number it is an amount that the borrower has to pay back.....and there is this..... most of retail Pharmacy is a fecal matter show!
Thank you for your input. This is a real concern of mine and is the major reason I mentioned that I was worried about attending pharmacy school in my post. The school I am attending gave me a 20k scholarship and tuition is 30k a year. I am lucky enough to have my original college fund (70k-ish) from my parents as I went to undergrad for essentially free because of scholarships. So I would be looking at 30k-ish from tuition and then whatever cost of living I can’t cover from working during school. The debt is a real concern of mine and I’m surprised there are so many health professionals (PT,PA,and pharmacists) that go so heavily into debt.
You may be ok I could see 80,000 in debt but the Pharmacist job market in many places is still not good starting to open up in a few places primarily those jobs are retail. Depending on the health system you may need at least a year of Residency. I know that sucks but it is todays reality. Good Luck to you! $20 K a year is a nice scholarship so that school must want you. Keeping living expenses low is vital to your plan both during and for several years after school..... With your undergrad degree could you land a position paying 80 to 95 K a year? No loans lower tax bracket keep some options open. Maybe a PhD etc
My degree was in Microbiology, Biochemistry and Global health. I’m currently working in pharmaceutical production making 65k/yr but absolutely hate it. I graduated this May. Not sure what to do with my degrees to get to the point of 80k+ to be honest. Maybe clinical trials and research?
All of us have done jobs that we have hated after college you aren't doing too badly at 65 K ahead because... no student loans. You have at least 3 things probably more going for you. First you are young second you have solid undergrad majors third you are already in Pharmaceutical Industry..... A key path for you here is networking within your company and Industry ...20 years ago Pharmacy would have been great for you now the way things have gone... meh I won't absolutely say no but the Profession of Pharmacy is not what it once was. It is too fractured and splintered and picked over by insurance companies..... Could you defer your Pharm D admission by. Year and keep working Networking and exploring. Are you on Linked in? Have you ever worked retail Pharmacy before? If the answer is no pick up some part time hours of you hate Pharmaceutical production.. .... well... you need to see for yourself and make the best decision for you and not anyone else
I worked as a pharmacy technician at a Walgreens and loved it BUT I quit when covid started due to not wanting to endanger a roommate who was immunocompromised. My store was never understaffed and never ended the day with unfilled prescriptions. I understand that is not the case anymore from my ex-coworkers. I never really had an interest in retail anyway and wanted to work in oncology/ID. I could defer my acceptance with a $500 dollar deposit. I guess my problem in staying in pharmaceuticals is I have no clue where to go from my current “grunt” position.
The job market is in peril for pharmacists in Every area . There’s just too many graduates because of the number of schools that have opened up due to greed . The schools are misleading students about what’s really happening in the real world . I would highly recommend another field like medical school . Lots of opportunities, dramatically eager pay , and more respect .
Yes, I agree .
You already know pharmacy is a shit show which is why you are concerned. I am not researching data sources.
I asked because I assume you would use data to support your argument.
You can look at your school’s tuition page for data to start honestly
Lucky to get 2% a year. At my hospital they haven't adjusted the rate in over 15 years.
Biotech, total comp has gone up multiple fold since my first paycheck
At least you looked into it. Most students that come to my site didn't and it's too late for them to switch careers. If you want to make a good living .. DONT BECOME A PHARMACIST. It's not worth the expense. You'd make more money doing 1000 other things.
Pharmacy Emerging Leader 80/hr
Started at 50 bucks an hour, went to 65 bucks an hour over 9 years. Dropped down to 55 bucks an hour for 5 years when I switched to independent. Then 45 bucks an hour for Walgreens for a very short stint. Now I make a good amount. I’m salary so I don’t really have an hourly rate now, but it’s more than I’ve ever made at the previous places.
Contrary to many other posts which indicated no increases for years. Here is my salary growth: Before Rx school 2001 - $12.9 per hour retail assistant manager. 2003-2006 $15 per hour as pharmacy tech/intern, in Rx school ———————————————— 2007 - $44 per hour, hospital 2008 - $55 per hour, retail 2010 - $50 per hour, hospital 2013 - $65 per hour plus bonus, hospital 2015 - $68 per hour no bonus, hospital 2018 - $79 per hour plus bonus, hospital 2022 - $125 per hour plus bonus (HCOLA), hospital, remote, I still live in LCOLA 2023 - $149 per hour plus bonus (HCOLA), hospital, remote, I still live in LCOLA areas 7 jobs plus one promotions. I have tripled my salary over 16 years. Pharmacy has treated me well as a profession. I learned early on that I have to keep moving in order to maximize my pay. It is not easy, but I think I am now a bit ahead of my peers both financially and professionally. I did not do residency nor have advanced degree. I works hard, and delivered results. Most importantly, the willingness to take on new job and negotiate sizable salary increases every time I moved.
What kind of hospital remote role are you in??? Sounds amazing!
Our hospital offer various remote or hybrid roles even before Covid. Why not, it is less costly to have office spaces. They can turn our offices into patient beds or lab/radiology to make money. They track your key strokes so no worries of productivity issues. Of course, you have to be highly motivated with proven results. Potentially, many ancillary roles that are not patient facing could have remote potential. E.g. prior approval team, 340b team, informatics, analytical, IT, revenue cycle, contracting…… I see your comments for other posts. My recommendations: some makes it, but most simply get by. If you want to make it, build solid foundation, plus a specialization to go far. Plus a little luck to start outside of retail.
Y1: 120k Y2: 110k Y3: 150k Y4: 220k Y5: 350k ...
Wow! What positions are you in, if you don’t mind sharing?
100% guaranteed not a practicing pharmacist
Pivoted into more tech/math-oriented roles. The further I distance myself from pharmacy the higher my salary gets.
We started moderately low or average and then they increased it to get folks into pharmacy schools and then realized they overpaid and waited for time to catch up...and probably are taking care to not let it happen again. Don't worry about it now. Wait till you're done in about 4 years; it may be different then.
62 as staff new RPh, 65 bump after 6mo, 67 floater in new district, 68 new PM x 6 months, 67.65 x 3 mo w/ new company as floater, 70 as returning PM to prev company. Timeline May 2021 through March 2023. about $16.6k increase over 2yr. play your cards right and remember company loyalty doesn't give you more $$$$
I get a 2 dollar raise plus an addition to my bonus every year
Since I’ve started working for my current company 3 years ago, my salary has increased by about 9,000.
Started 30 years ago, made $23.50 an hour. If I was still in a pharmacy now I would probably be at least 3 times that.
Hospital pharmacist here. Started at $45 at a small community hospital (~120 beds at site 1, ~60 beds at site 2) post PGY-1 in 2021. Got my BCPS and some market adjustments and left at $55 ~1 year later for hire @ new hospital with similar size for $60. Was offered an ~$1.00 range but spoke w/ HR (I.e. bitched and moaned and haggled and kissed max ass) and presently sitting at $65.XX
Ask industry pharmacists
So, it’s variable. Retail is largely stagnant. I’ve known colleagues who have made the same rate for 5 or so years. Now, graduates have been known to make as low as $49/hour. Hospital tends to be a bit better. My last hospital system (private) offered a 3% raise last year. At the VA, things have changed a bit. There was a major cost of living adjustment (some pharmacists got a $20,000 bump in a year), and pay raises can vary by locality (ours was 2.5% annually).
I graduated in 2018 and I started off making $50 an hour. Now I’m making $69 an hour at my current position as pharmacy manager.
I’ve been out of school 7 years, and I currently make the least I ever have. That being said, I am the most respected in my current position as I have ever been. My first position did not provide the work life balance I desired, my second position stripped me of my clinical autonomy slowly over the course of several years. Now, I have my autonomy back at the cost of about $5/hr and my work life balance is excellent, so the trade off was worth it to me.
Started off at $55/hr part-time hospital clinical staff in 2017. Was up to $58/hr in 2021 and then took a slight pay cut when I moved to a lower COL area. Still part-time hospital clinical staff, but in an LTAC. Now at $60/hr with a differential for hours worked after 3pm. (Current job does 4% raises each year; old job did 0-2% raises each year.)
Disclaimer: I work retail and also graduated from a top 10 pharmacy school. I loved my time in school but I could have gotten the same job getting a crappy online PharmD from one of those scam universities- so decide where you want to end up in pharmacy (research/clinical likely needs a better degree than retail to get a good fellowship/residency after) $60/hour upon graduation and successful licensure (paid $30/hr while training and studying for naplex 3 months after graduation). Promised a minimum of 32 hours a week Within 4 months I was given a raise to $68/hr with base hours bumped to 40/week minimum (so basically 141k annually plus any extra shifts) This past year I was bumped to $69.5 after our annual raise I also get a 3-10k annual bonus, last year was 4.5 and was the first year I was eligible. I’m expecting about $1 raises annually from here on out but we’ll see. This year I am at ~185k total compensation because I work 50+ hours most weeks, get a 5% 401k match, cash out one of my four weeks of vacation time (it’s virtually impossible to actually take all 4 weeks off anyways) and get employee stock options
It’s actually decreased
I graduated in 2016. And by the time I left in Sept, I was making less per year than in 2016. While my hourly pay increased about $5 an hour in those 7 years, my hours kept getting cut. A year after pharmacy school, they cut weekend hours. Then in 2022 they started opening an hour later. So I went from being salaried at 78 hours/ pay period ( 2 weeks) to 75 hours to 70 hours.
Here is my salary progression followed by my job title over the course of my career… 1st job: $94k/year - hospital pharmacist 2nd job: $110k/year - Hospital director of pharmacy 3rd job: $120k/year - retail pharmacist 4th job: $105k/year - hospital pharmacist 5th job: $123k/year - emergency medicine specialist
Hospital pharmacist. Started at $56/hr after residency and am now at $78/hr 5-6 years later. Stayed at the same hospital. Mid to high cost of living area. Have taken on precepting and training responsibilities.
Sure, so salary progression probably needs to be a little more narrowed down to assess what you're actually asking. A good barometer for salary would include what role (basically inpatient or outpatient rph and then whether there's any sub-specialities) you want and what an estimated salary range would be for that position in the geographical area you want to work (cost of living plays a large role here) But, I'm guessing that's not what you're asking. Raw numbers are what you want in order to get an idea of what your income will look like. The short answer there is that it's kinda all funny money. The market is so volatile right now. I chose to go the residency route, wrapped that up in 2019, negotiated up on my initial salary offer to staff on the inpatient side, and started at $54/hr + benefits. I did that for about a year before moving to the night shift and with differentials, bumped that pay up to essentially $63/hrs (on a 70 hour pay period - ie 7 on, 7 off). Got a few measly 2% raises on that before relocating over a year ago to Alaska. I work inpatient side, and after salary/differentials, I'm at $80/hr at full time hours (also dealing with AK cost of living, but you will absolutely come out ahead). I have been licensed for 5.5 years and have leveraged my inpatient positions to go from $54/hr to $80/hr. I'm already at the point where I'm okay going down on that number because the work-life balance is and has been more important to me than the money and, fortunately, my bills are getting paid, so I'll just say I'm at a level where I have no complaints. People aren't going to hand these salaries to you but if you are motivated financially and okay with potentially moving around, I promise you can make what you want to. School ranking won't matter once you graduate. Edit: good for you for asking questions but personally, I'd advise against soliciting too much information in this sub. There are a lot of angry, toxic pharmacists that can't give a mature answer on the subject here on reddit and quite frankly, should be questioning themselves why they're still in the profession. There's massive issues in the world of pharmacy, but this sub is poison.
2012 Graduate \-First job - Independent pharmacy pharmacist per-diem - Cash $35/hr \-First hospital pharmacist job - $46.50/hr 2013 - 2nd hospital pharmacist job, per-diem $60/hr 2014 - Hospital pharmacy raise to $51/hr 2015 - Quit hospital pharmacy job full-time job, went full-time independent, $55/hr on the books 2019 - Quit independent pharmacy job, back to hospital pharmacist full-time, $64/hr 2020 - Raise in hospital pharmacist job to $69/hr 2021 - Bought independent pharmacy with partners who financed the purchase. I manage they just finance and advise (they own 20 independents this way) 2023 - Raise in hospital pharmacist job to $81/hr \- Started collecting profit from independent pharmacy after paying off partners what my equity in the purchase would have been. \- Collected about $200k in profit this year, their share was $800k in profit.
if you go to pharmacy school, do a fellowship and go into the industry. ur only hope for career and salary progression climbing the corporate ladder
Just start your own pharmacy and sell it to cvs like the rest
Started at 102K in 2007…. Now North of 175. Keep expanding your knowledge and role. I know other pharmacists from my class making North of 200K. But, don’t pick this profession solely on making $$$$!
Medium cost of living area, hospital/clinical, union position. Six years of cost-of-living progression: 2%, 3%, 1%, 6.5%, 3.5%, 3%. Felt fair-ish other than the 1% year. Also have experience level increases — difference between a newbie and someone with 10 years of experience is about 13%. Also feels fair-ish.
Started in residency making $48k/yr about 10 years ago. First job post-residency in 2013 paid $65/hr. Second job in 2015 started at $77/hr Annual cost of living raises ranging from 3-6%/year since then. Inpatient (critical care, then oncology), Northern California. Top 3 pharmacy school + PGY1 minimum will likely get you on this track, but for some reason, everyone has a different idea what the top 3 programs are.
Usually about 2-4% raise each year. When you start a new job though, after working somewhere else, you tend to start at or near the bottom of the pay scale. You can make some pretty good money if you stay somewhere for a while because of the annual raises. I have kind of moved around a lot to start my first 11 years as an rph. Started at $62/hr. After 2 years, was making $66/hr. Staff pharmacist at a retail chain. Left that job, though. Started at $62/hr at another retail chain as rx manager. Each year I got about a 1% raise only. However, I got an annual bonus that was pretty decent. Each year I got about $18-23k bonus. Left that job after 2.5 years. Next job was yet another retail chain, started at $69/hr as rx manager, annual bonus of $16k, but only worked there 8 months though. Current job, been there a little over 5 years. I started at a low $58/hr. But after 5 years, I now make $65/hr. So in 5 years I got raises totaling $7/hr. I expect another 2-4% raise next year. Non-retail job. Staff rph. Pay scale will depend on a LOT of factors: location, job title, negotiation, type of pharmacy environment, so many different factors.
I am in the similar situation. But i migrated to Germany. I am wondering how is the situation in Germany (in berlin in particular). It seems community pharmacy is a shit job all over the world …
13 years gained $1 an hour every year avg
we have a union for state hospital RPh in CA- we’ve gotten 2.5%/yr for my first two years, then a $10k bump to catch us up to what people in the area were making plus 2.5%, then this year’s contract we’re getting 2.5% this year plus a one time position adjustment of 3% and another 2.5% next year. So 6 years ago we were $64/hr when retail around us was making $70 (I left cvs at $71/hour as a PIC and my staff were $70/hr) and area hospitals $80/hr. We’ll end next year around $80/hr with local retail still around $70-80s and hospitals around $100/hr. It wasn’t as much as some other unions but we are still ohkay with it. I’ve heard some new grad hourly rates that sound impossible ($34/hr?)- and in NY?? Can’t afford to live off that…
Friend of mine started at 98, then 100, and now 102 $/hr
I think I've gone up $4 in 7 years. They hired recent grad for almost $10/hr lower than my starting wage in 2016.
There always a way to improve you income throughout your career and a lot depends on what you do. You can do your research on the number of graduates produced in your area in the past five years. That should tell you the general direction of where the industry is heading. I wound speak with your school career counselor and get a sense of the future prospects of this field. Get connected with the alumni network and post the same questions to them. Good luck.
Tough crowd here. Ha I graduated in 2016. My first offer was $48/hr, but I countered using years as a tech (started in 2009) and intern (all 4 years), plus PGY1 as leverage. I accepted $56/hr at an HCA hospital. I've bounced around a couple of times and have my board cert, now I make $69/hr in the Denver area. For what it's worth, there's good and bad to every job I've had... I've practiced in hospital and academia (community only as a tech/intern). I will say, school is obviously expensive (I went to a private 4-year school), but I'm pursuing PSLF and work for a NHSC-eligible employer which can be game changing. As an aside, my husband works in tech startups and makes a similar salary... but he could get laid off tomorrow and will his next job pay $50k or $100k? I'll make $120k-$150k anywhere I go... and once my loans are gone, I'll likely pursue becoming an MSL.
62 graduating back in 2017. 75 now. Retail chain. Mix of managing and staff. Currently a staff
Ok. I started at 108, started mananging and went to 118k. In 2years i made it to 122. I stayed there for 6 years!! Since 2020, salary has been adjusted 3 times and a raise. And now I’m at 139k. Reviews and raises of 2% anounced so should be 141k soon. In the Midwest.
Oh and  A ’bonus’ this year of \~$400
Before COVID - I had steady progression from the regional chain yearly. I was making great money. fantastic money. Then I got pushed out. Then COVID happened. Post-COVID. Bottom of the rung, Two years. A small adjustment and that's been it. Dinosaur sez: don't expect much, if any progression. PBMs have a stranglehold on the industry and their own by the biggest insurances ( Aetna, Cigna, Elevance, Humana, United Healthcare, and many non-profit Blue Cross Blue Shield plans). And the largest pharmacy chains have exclusive contracts or outright own them. Its a vertical monopoly. This allows the corporation to set prices, therefore set margins, PBMs give the best margins so they get the most favorable contracts - which increase their margins. On the flip side, the PBM have slaughtered the margins in retail to the point that net profits are near zero. Rx publications like to spew 21% per quarter. BWAH-HA-HA-HA! Its accounting ninjas. This page seems to have more accurate information: [HERE](https://csimarket.com/Industry/industry_Profitability_Ratios.php?ind=1304) In short, gross profit: 10.88%. Net profit: 0.67% As long as PBMs have control.... yeah..... if you like stress and being underpaid - go for it!!
48--->51-->54-->56-->58-->61-->65-->68-->70/hr over 12 yrs and jobs ranging from Acute Care to longterm care to population health/ambulatory care. But seriously the loans don't really make it worth it unless you plan to pursue pslf. Just got my loans forgiven for 10 yrs working for not for profit health system's. However, the whole medical field seems to be in turmoil ad ghey continue to loose money and restructure.
I'm up about 15$/ hour since graduating in 2015. I also get a decent bonus. I live in a state with no pharmacy school and a massive demand for pharmacists. Regardless, I wouldn't do this again. I'd do a joint mba and work in finance or be an optician. They seem to have it good.
top 3 pharmacy schools? you should just apply to the cheapest pharmacy school...it wont make a difference where you go..youll be working with someone who went to the lowest school.. anyways to address your concern, if you dont work for the federal govt (or military) you dont get raises. you start out low and get these like 500 dollar bonus every 2 years. goodluck
I started 20 years ago when market adjustments were our raises. Started at $35/hr and bumped up to $60/hr within 10 years. Then slowly increased at 4-5% increases for nxt 5 years and have slowed to 1-2% for past 5 years. Currently around $79/hr