US postdocs funded by the National Institutes of Health will receive a 1% increase in stipends this year, to give a first-year allowance of US$37,740. The rise comes after two years of no change and in the wake of advocacy efforts from the US National Postdoctoral Association (NPA). A federal bill that would have boosted the stipend by 2% did not make it through the US Senate last month. NPA executive director Cathee Johnson Phillips says that the association will advocate for a larger rise for fiscal year 2011. “We're still well below the $45,000 target established in 2000,” Johnson Phillips says, referring to a recommendation by the National Academy of Sciences for how large stipends should be for first-year postdocs (see Nature 453, 129; 2008).