Salary Confessions: The TV Staff Writer
WGA dues and agent/lawyer commissions keep them almost even to where they were before, and the 'panic moment' where they'll call it quits
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Happy Monday, Series Business readers. Nearly 80 of you have responded to our Salary Confessions series so far, sharing with me how much you make, your deepest financial and career concerns and whether working in the entertainment industry feels sustainable after the turmoil of the last few years. When I’ve chatted with some of you to learn more details about your lives, what you’ve told me has been both cathartic and clarifying to know you’re not the only ones feeling nervous about your future in this town.
It’s not all a big downer. Some of you are doing okay! (I’ve had the head of a production company write in to tell me that their greatest indulgences are a Tesla and fine wine.) I’d love to share more about the people I’ve heard from. Once I receive 100 responses, we’re going to crunch the numbers and deliver a more comprehensive snapshot of how Hollywood lives: Salaries, rent, retirement savings, the works.
All to say, keep sending me those Salary Confessions. Here’s the Google form.
Today’s confessor is a 35-year-old TV and feature film writer who finally broke into a writers room after years of being an assistant and support staffer, only to learn that a first-year writer’s take-home pay isn’t so different after you subtract the $2,500 Writers Guild of America initiation fee and manager/agent/lawyer commissions.
This particular writer today breaks down their exact weekly take-home pay, where it goes — and the stress it has put them under. This writer has “skipped vet visits, skipped eye doctor visits, skipped anything I can skip to save enough to last until the next gig comes by.”
As a writers assistant, they made around $1,355 a week for the 19 weeks they were on the show. As a staff writer, they brought home $2,352 after taxes and commissions each of the 14 weeks they wrote on the series, not including the WGA fee. (The guild minimum is $5,172 per week before deductions, plus an episode fee, which this writer had to split with another staffer.)
That’s $25,745 as a support staffer and $32,928, pre-guild fee, as a staff writer. The almost 28 percent increase is a good salary bump on paper, but in actual dollars is not life-changing money.
The pressure to make tradeoffs isn’t something we’ve discussed enough in the newsletter, but nearly every person I’ve talked to has negotiated with themselves what they’re willing to give up to hold onto their Hollywood aspirations.
This writer’s WGA insurance has yet to kick in, but their IATSE-provided insurance from their assistant days expired in the fall, so they’re skipping doctor’s visits to save a bit of cash.
It’s another example of the different ways people will make often extreme compromises in certain areas of their lives in order to stay afloat in the career they’ve fought so hard to build in this town. Some live with an absurd number of roommates, or don’t see family out of state anywhere near as often as they’d like, or delay having children until they feel more financially stable.
This person’s story also underscores the perpetual uncertainty the industry’s workforce is facing in this climate. Finally getting staffed as a writer, after the strike no less, should be something to celebrate. “This is the first time I’ve been feeling like I finally made a leap that I’ve been trying a really long time to make,” they say, “and instead of being excited to make that leap, I’m scared.”