Salary
Average Salary: $102,000
Expected Lifetime Earnings: $4,258,000
If you're looking for a job that will earn you gobs and gobs of money—enough to let you buy a Maybach and a mansion in Beverly Hills—then, for the love of Pete, don'tbecome a political scientist.
While the average salary for folks who identify themselves as political scientists is over $100,000, and that kind of money is nothing to sneeze at, most political scientists don't work as political scientists per se (source). So, what do they work at and how much do they make?
Lots of political scientists who are just entering the field get paid nada (source). Zip. Zilch. Zero. Why? Because they're unpaid interns.
That Colorado legislative aide you read about a couple of minutes ago makes ten dollars an hour. The communications guru with a politically active non-profit earns $42,000 a year. The junior administrator with the Drug Enforcement Administration makes fifty grand (source).
Salaries for political scientists who are doing something other than pure political science do go up, but the money can be quite limited in certain jobs, and that's a problem if you live in an expensive city and have student loans to pay off.