Kenan Thompson Defends ‘SNL’s Cheap Pay Scale

Saturday Night Live has been in the news a lot this week thanks to a recent New York Magazine cover story that brought together an impressive number of current and former cast members including Mike Myers, Bowen Yang, Kate McKinnon, Dana Carvey and Chevy Chase, who was actually there in person, and not just photoshopped in later to avoid any potential difficulties.  

The biggest takeaway from this lavish celebration of SNL’s 50th season? SNL pays like shit.

That's because Pete Davidson attracted a lot of media attention over his answer to a question about his biggest “splurge” after getting his first SNL paycheck. “Do you guys know what they pay us?” Davidson responded. “It’s like three grand an episode. I think I got dinner.” 

Jason Sudeikis echoed this sentiment, telling the outlet that he simply “splurged” on paying his New York rent that month.

Earlier this year, Cosmopolitan reported that first-time cast members make “$7,000 per episode,” which works out to about $147,000 a year. So maybe the wages have gone up a little since Davidson started on the show a decade ago. While it’s obviously still a lot of money, people nonetheless seem to be pretty shocked that new cast members of an iconic network television show make around the same as what the average Walmart manager pulls in (to be fair, that is a way harder job).

But even in the context of late-night sketch shows, SNL’s compensation has, historically, been notably lacking. Last year, Taran Killam revealed that he made $3,000 more per week when he was working at Mad TV than he did as an SNL cast member a decade later. 

Following Davidson’s comments, long-time cast member Kenan Thompson was recently asked to weigh in on the pseudo-controversy surrounding SNL’s pay scale while attending the American Museum of Natural History gala. “It’s pretty notorious that it’s more so about having the job than getting paid for the job,” Thomspon told Variety. “You gotta pay your dues a little bit, yeah.”

With all due respect to Thompson, it does seem a little ridiculous to suggest that SNL is such a great job that it doesn’t need to pay people like it’s a great job. But it makes total sense that Thompson’s response would be diplomatic considering that A) he paid his “dues” long ago and his current salary is estimated to be in “the $2 million to $3 million range”; and B) he was attending the gala with several SNL colleagues, including Lorne Michaels.

Speaking of Michaels, his salary has never been publicly disclosed, although it’s rumored to be around “$30 million to $40 million annually,” which may explain why his young cast only “splurges” on things like food and housing.