New Grad Pay Rates

This is the thing that gets me. A nurse is starting out around 19-21 dollars an hour........ and think about how importaint and hard this job is. Do you think this is fair pay rate when other medical personel are comming out of college making 30+. Because without nurses there would be NO hospitals! And the other thing that gets me, is if you look on pay scale web sites, in 10 years we only average 24-26... So 10 years of hard labor and experience in a nurse is only worth 3.00!! When in many other fields it is worth sooo much more. I think nurses need to start thinking about these issues and raising some question with the powers that be!! I don't understand why our "leaders" the ANA don't even try to make changes in this matter. I am not sure exactly what the ANA does except collect dues for what I am not sure.. I think nurses need to come together and find someone to represent us. I mean do you honestly think some of these hospital executives that make 6 figures a year would clean someones butt or pack a dressing for 19.00 and hour? Just a thought......

Methodist (gary/merriville) starts all of their new grads off at 23.03 an hour that is what I have been told. I was also told that it was not negoticable.

When I started at the VA in Indy about 2 yrs ago I think I started out at around $49,500/yr. base pay. Plus we get 5 wks. vacation a year, we accrue sick leave from the day we start, up to $40,000 tuition pay back (over 5 yrs), and they do not make nurses go home and use their time or not get paid if your unit is overstaffed! It is a great place to work and in 2yrs I have gotten a $12,000 raise!!! Can't beat it!

I've been looking into area hospitals and I can't believe I overlooked the VA!! I'll be checking into that. Thanks for the info!

So question...there was all the info about WEO and an additional $11-12. Is that only in addition to base or does that include the night and weekend shift diff? Either way its a great start to the career, but I was confused by the wording!

temacrn, I agree with you that the pay isn't very good in comparison to our roles. However, I wanted to give you a little bit of a comparison in pay and cost of living. I am from Indiana and am familiar with the cost of living and the pay. 19-20 dollars per hour starting out may not seem like much but I now live in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia and will be graduating in May from an RN program. The cost of living is much higher (we pay $1200/month mortgage on a 3br/2ba 1400 sq ft house with a small yard and it's right in town. But I will most likely only be making around $24 tops when I start working. The one thing that I will say we do have going for us pay wise is that our shift differentials are pretty significant. But pay is all relative to your area. So 20 bucks per hour in most parts of Indiana isn't all that bad. For the cost of living here, nursing wages are pretty low when compared to other regions of the U.S. with comparable cost of living.