The American Chemical Society recently published its 2012 salary survey for Chemists and can be found here: http://www.acs.org/content/dam/acsorg/careers/salaries/surveys/salaries-2012.pdf

As Figuer 1 shows, the median salary for all (degree level) chemists took some serious hits during the recent recession:

Perhaps more importantly, by 2012 the median salary for Chemists was not only $1,300 less than 2008 but factoring in the effects of inflation the median salary for chemists was a full $7,900 less than in 2008.

Figure 2 breaks it down by degree level:

Chemists with bachelors degrees have a median salary of $73,850 which represents a loss of $4,125 (-5.3%) in buying power since 2008. Chemists with master's degrees show a median salary of $82,000 are $6,068 below their spending power in 2008 and finally chemists with PhD show a median salary of $100,600 which is down from the $108,475 needed to regain 2008's buying power.

All in all this is not encouraging.