"Experience and exposure."

It must be noted that this is the pay for their first shows as lowly writers, not future stars.
And yeah, a beginner writer for SNL gets a few thousand per episode, so that's 12 thousand a month, or 620 thousand a year.
Not bad for a beginner writer.
Then if they get to actually act in the sketches they obviously get much more... and who knows how much if they become stars.

So I won't cry for them, Argentina.

 

I don't understand where a few thousand per episode would equal $620 thousand per year.

If a novice performer or writer were to be paid $3,000 per show that would be $12,000 per month.  But SNL only does about 20 shows per year, so that would be $60,000.  And assuming all 20 shows are repeated and writers/performers are paid the same for residule would be $120,000 for either the novice writer or performer.  People like Pete Davidson didn't write and were only performers. 

If you were to perform and also a writer for the show, which many are, do they make double?  So $6,000 per episode or a maximum of $240,000 for a newbie, assuming the same rates for repeats.  

In his defence, his username is "newsguy" not "mathguy"

Speaking of Saturday Night, one of the originals isn't exactly popular with anyone he worked with. A really interesting profile of an apparently terrible man - Chevy Chase.

"He wasn’t just hated by current cast members, but also the other NBC hosts. When rumors circulated that the network was considering him as Carson’s replacement, the legendary Tonight Show host did not mince words. “Chase couldn’t ad-lib a fart after a baked-bean dinner,” were Carson’s precise thoughts. Even viewers could sense some of Chase’s contempt and arrogance, which he hardly deigned to mask on camera."

Chevy Chase, the beloved comedian who was a monster off camera: ‘Not everyone hated him, just the people who’ve worked with him’

From Ford's biography.


As fate would have it, one of the celebrity patients treated at the Betty Ford Center was Chevy Chase, the breakout star of Saturday Night Live famous for his sendups of Ford as president. Chase’s subsequent movie career was checkered, and by 1985 he was seriously addicted to painkillers prescribed for his back. Before sitting down to lunch at the center, Chase and the former president looked on as their wives, on all fours, tried to figure out the wiring of a videotape recorder. At one point Chase got up from his chair and suggested to Ford that they might lend a helping hand. “No, no, Chevy,” Ford said, gently pulling him back to his seat. “Don’t even think about it. I’ll probably get electrocuted and you’ll be picked up and arrested for murder.”