THE REAl DEAL!!

I know that it's not true for new grads. A new grad at my SF hospital makes almost 43/hr. With my night shift differential, I make around 50/hr. Of course, in my neighborhood, a studio (one room!) apartment rents for at least 1500/month, and the average cost of a home in the Bay Area is over 700K. A gallon of gas costs $4 now. In any other part of the country, I'd be very comfortable raising a family on my wages, but around here I'm barely touching middle class. You have to take our cost of living into account before you start getting excited about our high wages. In my opinion, the best things about working here are the strong union influence and the resultant low ratios, no mandatory overtime, lift teams, etc...

it will be another 2 months before i even start the lpn program of which i have just gotten accepted into. i live in southern california and i was wondering if you all in the bay area are making that much per hour, what kind of hours do you all get? is it 8 or 12 hour shifts.