SABEW releases salary study results

Business journalists in the United States make a median salary of $65,000 to $70,000, according to an informal poll of nearly 400 business reporters and editors conducted by the Society of American Business Editors and Writers.

The median salary for a business reporter was between $60,000 and $65,000, while the median salary for a business section editor was between $75,000 to $80,000. An editor of a business print publication makes a median salary between $95,000 and $100,000.

The informal survey received 394 responses in July and early August and is the first attempt at quantifying compensation among the estimated 8,000 business journalists working in the United States. SABEW, which has its headquarters at Arizona State University, plans to conduct the survey annually to determine how compensation and other demographics among business journalists change.

The survey discovered that nearly half of the respondents — 46.4 percent — are in the first or second job in business journalism. About 20 percent have had four more jobs in business journalism.

The field is also attracting young journalists. Sixty percent of the respondents have been in business journalism for less than five years, while just 4.3 percent had been in financial reporting for more than 20 years.

More than 40 percent of the business reporters who responded — 170 — work in the Northeast, while the South and the Midwest each had 16.5 percent of the respondents.

Read more here. DISCLOSURE: I conducted the survey for SABEW.