[JKD99]

Hi Kelly
Wow, long topic. Your question is a tough one to answer, for a few reasons, but I'll give it a shot. I'm unsure of what you mean by "audio engineer". In post, one is generally an editor (sometimes called a "sound designer" which is another very ambiguous term), a re-recording mixer, or an engineer, who is generally one who is responsible for systems/rooms/hardware/software/networking, etc.
The word "salary" usually only comes into play on the engineering side, as they're the only ones with constant employment, whether the company has a show or not. Most editors and mixers, especially in the feature film world, are hired for a given film and when the film's done, they're done. There are a few supervisors who have yearly guarantees with their respective studios, and mixers as well, but mostly we're fired several times a year (which is why I opened my own place: if I'm gonna sink, I at least wanna be driving the boat!). All that said, when I was working for other houses, I stiil managed to work about 48-50 weeks a year, and this is the tricky part. As it's been said a bunch of times here on the DUC, post really is about who you know. When supervisors crew up a film, they tend to use who they've used before, and then they ask THOSE people for a referral if they need someone else. It's assumed that everyone is competent, and doesn't need handholding, so then it really becomes more about your vibe than anything else. To say that you've worked several times for a supervisor or director is in a way a better endorsement than "I've worked all over town"
ANYWAY, what you asked for before I got up on the soapbox, I think the Local 700 (Motion Picture Editors' Guild) minimum scale rate for a sound editor is $1700-something per week, 48.6 hours. Most feature film houses and studios pay $2-300 above scale as a matter of course. Supervisors usually $3K-$5K+ depending on how big a film (or how big a supervisor). Mixers are slightly higher than editors as far as scale, but most mixers working for the majors are working for far above scale. In the reality TV side, I have friends that are making anywhere from $50 to $80 per hour. They usually get the overtime, which runs rampant on those kids of gigs, but they don't have the Union health insurance or pension for when you can't hear anymore I don't know about the network TV guys, to be honest. The union scale still applies for the minimum, but I don't know what bearing that has on the actual wages. Anyone care to chime in?
So, hope that helped a bit, good luck!