Am I being offered a fair pay?

Nursing Students ADN/BSN

Published

Hi :hug:

I am a Registered Nurse and have 3 years of ICU experience. At an interview for ICU RN position, I was much appreciated for my ICU experience but I was offered a pay rate of $24.60/hr in Austin, Texas. Is this ridiculously low pay :uhoh3: or this is the usual pay rate here :p. I used to make way more than this but that was in Australia.

Can you all lovely nursing friends guide me. Should I accept this pay and start or should wait for a better pay. So confused and upset with the pay rate.

help help help....:confused::confused::confused:

Cheers...

:cheers::nurse::bow:

Specializes in Flight RN, Trauma1 CVICU STICU MICU CCU.
Hi :hug:

I am a Registered Nurse and have 3 years of ICU experience. At an interview for ICU RN position, I was much appreciated for my ICU experience but I was offered a pay rate of $24.60/hr in Austin, Texas. Is this ridiculously low pay :uhoh3: or this is the usual pay rate here :p. I used to make way more than this but that was in Australia.

Can you all lovely nursing friends guide me. Should I accept this pay and start or should wait for a better pay. So confused and upset with the pay rate.

help help help....:confused::confused::confused:

Cheers...

:cheers::nurse::bow:

Sorry to say, that the Austin market is saturated. I left there with 2 years of ICU experience making about 25.71. That is AFTER working my way up from the new grad pay scale of 21.5. If you want to get paid for your skills go to another area. Arizona, where I am now, offered me more than that with less experience than you.

Austin will always pay you lower because people want to live in that city very badly. Dallas pays considerably more as well. As new grads, i was making 21.5, my friend started a year after me and was offered 25.50 as a new grad at parkland.

Sorry to say, take your offer, counter offer, or move along. that is the going rate in austin.

0 Votes

I am an RN with 17 years of experience, and I only make $27/hr. I work in rural Nebraska, so cost of living is a little lower, but still....seeing all these higher rates makes me question how valued I really am.

0 Votes
Specializes in Emergency.

I think the real important question here is not "Is the pay rate fair?" But rather...

Do I want to work at the facility? DO I want to live in that city? and Can I live on that pay rate?

In Florida that rate would be OK for a nurse with 3 years experience, but we don't really pay very well here in the Sunshine state.

0 Votes
Specializes in Flight RN, Trauma1 CVICU STICU MICU CCU.

i received an offer from the regional level 1 trauma center in Columbia, SC, for permanent hire at 20.41/hr. That is WITH 3 years of experience and 2 in specialty. Now then i know the hospital down the road offers 5/hr more, but it isn't a trauma center.

It just depends on where you are. California offers considerably more. Maybe going agency will get you the rate you want.

I just accepted an offer for 40/hr here in Tucson, this very morning. Now then it is agency. But my f/t staff position at Uof A is considerably better than i was making when i left austin, and not much of a pay cut from what i was making as a traveler.

0 Votes

What about a new grad from Staten Island NY?

0 Votes

Sometimes I was offered a fare pay by the pt when I transported them to radiology or something. But I felt guilty taking their money....

0 Votes
Specializes in Mental Health, Hospice Care.
Sometimes I was offered a fare pay by the pt when I transported them to radiology or something. But I felt guilty taking their money....

:) bwahahahahahaha....

0 Votes

Hola

I live in Corpus Christi and the prices vary, but that is definitely low pay / you should try to negotiate it. In Corpus Christi, the lowest an RN makes would be $20.00 hr but the highest I have seen was $35.00 hr. My friend who graduated, managed to get a job in ER with no previous experience and is getting $35.00 an hr / no benefits. I would have thought the Austin area would pay more but in Texas, too many graduates are saturating the area particularly in Houston & San Antonio. Overall, low pay considering experience + area +specialty.

0 Votes

For the person asking about new grads in Staten Island - I'm in NJ within commuting distance of Staten Island and started at $33/hour as a new grad, in a hospital. I would think given the proximity that Staten Island would be comparable.

0 Votes
Specializes in ..

It's pretty clear what is happening with wages. There is a surplus of nurses; hospitals, agencies, etc. no longer need to lure nurses with high salaries. If you don't take the job, someone else will. Nursing schools are churning out new nurses far faster than jobs are created or older nurses are retiring. Already we're hearing stories about pay cuts, reduced hours, and even terminations of those on higher pay scales. Hospitals can easily fill those jobs with new grads. Get rid of 10 experienced nurses each making $50/hour and replace them with 25 recent grads who are willing to work for $20/hour. When there are 50 to 100 applicants for each position the prospective employee isn't in such a great bargaining position.

My suggestion is to try to negotiate; it certainly can't hurt and you may end up with a dollar or two more. It's highly unlikely you'll get much more than that. Most large employers have fairly rigid pay scales and use a formula for determining wages. There is often a standard wage for new employees, then you might get $.50/hr more for each year experience up to 5 years, $.25/hr for each additional year up to 10 years, an extra $.50/hr for a BSN or a $1.00 for an MSN, etc., etc. This is not always the case, other employers have their own systems, but it's rarely without fairly strict guidelines. Employers don't want to hear arguments that, "she has less experience but is being paid more", or (even worse) accusations of discrimination. So, they follow a pretty exact equation so there are no charges of preferrential treatment, nepotism, or discrimination.

I've seen a very definite downward trend in wages over the last 10+ years. With hundreds and hundreds of nursing schools each graduating hundreds of nurses each year there is every reason to expect the trend to continue.

0 Votes
Specializes in Trauma.
i received an offer from the regional level 1 trauma center in Columbia, SC, for permanent hire at 20.41/hr. That is WITH 3 years of experience and 2 in specialty. Now then i know the hospital down the road offers 5/hr more, but it isn't a trauma center.

It just depends on where you are. California offers considerably more. Maybe going agency will get you the rate you want.

I just accepted an offer for 40/hr here in Tucson, this very morning. Now then it is agency. But my f/t staff position at Uof A is considerably better than i was making when i left austin, and not much of a pay cut from what i was making as a traveler.

Be careful with the agencies. A friend of mine got her agency pay direct deposit and only got 2 check stubs. After a year, and making almost $75K she got a 1099 from the agency. This is because they didn't cut any taxes out of her check, she was a contract worker, and she was on the hook for all of her taxes that Apr., Fed, State, and FICA. She had to take out a loan to pay her taxes.

0 Votes
Specializes in Adult ICU.

Austin is BADLY saturated with new grad nurses so it is very hard for people to get jobs here therefore desperate nurses mean less pay.

People live in Austin for the beauty not the pay/traffic. Seton Brackenridge pays the most and offers most opportunities for professional growth and pay but is hard to get in and has to open a new hospital.

Your pay is about the same as a new grad ICU nurse. You can go to Scott and White an hour a way they are in need of ICU nurses.

0 Votes
+ Add a Comment