Adapted from a Colombian telenovela by Silvio Horta, the hit 2000s comedy-drama Ugly Betty follows the fish-out-of-water story of Betty Suarez (America Ferrera), a young woman from Queens, New York who lands a job as assistant to the editor-in-chief at the Manhattan fashion magazine Mode. Although the series originally aired between 2006 and 2010, Ugly Betty has enjoyed a wave of renewed appreciation in the streaming era, and fans on social media have debated many elements of the show years after its debut. One question, in particular, appears to have piqued the interest of some fans — how much did Betty Suarez make at Mode magazine?
Although Betty’s salary was never established throughout the show’s four-season run, one Ugly Betty fan site estimates that her Mode earnings were around $37,810 a year. Meanwhile, according to the job and recruitment site Glassdoor, the average salary of an editor-in-chief assistant in New York City is estimated to be around $48,866 in the year 2023.
As fans may recall, Betty gets promoted to the position of Mode magazine editor in the Season 3 episode “The Fall Issue.” For this job role, Glassdoor estimates that the average base pay is roughly $67,000 per year.
In the final ever episode of Ugly Betty, titled “Hello Goodbye,” Betty leaves the Big Apple for London where she starts a new position as the co-editor-in-chief of a brand new magazine, described in the series as a “younger person’s New Yorker.” For this position, a salary estimate from Glassdoor claims that Betty would take home around £57,000 ($72,700) per year.
Ron Tom/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images
As mentioned, Ugly Betty aired for four seasons between 2006 and 2010 on ABC. Starring Ferrera, Ana Ortiz, Eric Mabius, Mark Indelicato, and Becki Newton, among others, the series enjoyed both critical praise and ratings success throughout its TV run, earning a total of 3 Emmy Award wins and 19 nominations.
Speaking in 2021, Mabius, who played Mode editor-in-chief, Daniel Meade, teased that an Ugly Betty reboot might be in the works. “There’s something being discussed,” the actor told TV Tonight, adding: “We had an abrupt ending and I think that we all felt that we didn’t have enough time to finish telling the stories that needed to be told.”
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