The members of the public who are convinced that registered nurses earn huge salaries are like shrubs on the outside looking in because they do not know how much sweat and tears we shed for our educations, and they are unaware of the hazards many of us face during the course of a day at work.
Am I the only one who becomes at least mildly irritated whenever a random individual finds out that someone is a nurse and proceeds to say, "You're rolling in the big bucks!"
To keep things honest, I'll recall a few observations about the people who generally do (and don't) broadcast their feelings about nursing pay. In my personal experience, no doctor has ever told me to my face that I'm earning 'big money.' No engineers, attorneys, pharmacists, speech language pathologists, or other highly educated professionals have hooted and hollered about the supposedly 'good money' that nurses make once they discover that I am one. On the other hand, bank tellers, call center workers, clerks, and others who work at entry-level types of jobs have loudly made their feelings known about the incomes that nurses earn.
I was employed at two different fast food chains while in high school, and during my late teens, I worked a string of dead end jobs in the retail sector. From ages 20 to 23, I maintained employment at a paper products plant in high cost-of-living southern California as a factory worker and earned an income of about $40,000 yearly with some overtime. Of course I thought that nurses earned handsome salaries during my years in the entry-level workforce. After all, the average RN income of $70,000 annually far exceeded my yearly pay back in those days. Keep in mind that I paid virtually no taxes as a fast food worker because my income was so low. Also, I paid relatively little in the way of taxes as a retail store clerk.
Awash With Cash
Many of the certified nursing assistants (CNAs) with whom I've worked over the years have fallen into the trap of believing that the nurses are awash with cash. However, the ones that pursue higher education and become nurses themselves eventually come to the realization that the money is not all that it is cracked up to be. For example, Carla* is a single mother to three children under the age of 10 and earns $11 hourly as a CNA at a nursing home. Due to her lower income and family size, she qualifies for Section 8 housing, a monthly food stamp allotment, WIC vouchers, Medicaid, and childcare assistance. Moreover, Carla receives a tax refund of $4,000 every year due to the earned income tax credit (EITC), a federal program that provides lower income workers with added revenue through tax refunds. Much of Carla's CNA income is disposable.
Carla returned to school part-time, earned her RN license, and now earns $25 hourly at a home health company in a Midwestern state with a moderate cost of living. She nets approximately $3,000 per month after taxes and family health insurance are deducted as she no longer qualifies for Medicaid. She pays the full rent of $900 monthly for a small, modest 3-bedroom cottage because she no longer qualifies for Section 8. She pays $500 monthly to feed a family of four because she no longer qualifies for food stamps or WIC vouchers. She spends $175 weekly ($700 monthly) on after school childcare for three school-age children because she no longer qualifies for childcare assistance. Carla's other expenses include $200 monthly to keep the gas tank of her used car full, $300 a month for the electric/natural gas bill, a $50 monthly cell phone bill, and $50 per month for car insurance. Her bills add up to $2,700 per month, which leaves her with a whopping $300 left for savings, recreational pursuits and discretionary purposes. By the way, she did not see the nice tax refund of $4,000 this year since she no longer qualifies for EITC. During Carla's days as a CNA most of her income was disposable, but now that she's an RN she lives a paycheck to paycheck existence. I'm sure she wouldn't be too pleased with some schmuck proclaiming that she's earning 'big money.'
The people who are convinced that nurses earn plenty of money are like shrubs on the outside looking in because they do not know how much sweat and tears we shed for our educations. They remain blissfully unaware of the daily struggles of getting through our workdays. All they see are the dollar signs. I'm here to declare that I worked hard to get to where I am today and I deserve to be paid a decent wage for all of the services that I render. Instead of begrudging us, join us.
Specializes in Case mgmt., rehab, (CRRN), LTC & psych.
Rose_Queen said:
Yep. I always tell those who ask that it would not be wise to take out more in loans than they can realistically expect to make in a year. And sometimes, even that doesn't work out- I've had so many hours cut lately that I'm struggling to make ends meet because I don't have the PTO to cover the low census hours.
Perhaps it may be time to obtain a PRN gig on the side?
Specializes in OR, Nursing Professional Development.
TheCommuter said:
Perhaps it may be time to obtain a PRN gig on the side?
I already have a non-nursing gig on the side. Unfortunately, with my unpredictable call requirements anything with a schedule is a no-go. I am working on a whole new place of employment though.
"Sherman's first discovery about the wealthy is that they don't want to talk to her. One woman begs off, saying she's "swamped" with her children; Sherman subsequently learns that the kids are at camp. Most have family incomes of more than five hundred thousand dollars a year, and about half have incomes of more than a million dollars a year or assets of more than eight million dollars, or both. (At least, this is what they tell Sherman; after a while, she comes to believe that they are underreporting their earnings.)
A second finding Sherman makes, which perhaps follows from the first, is that the privileged prefer not to think of themselves that way. One woman, who has an apartment overlooking the Hudson, a second home in the Hamptons, and a household income of at least two million dollars a year, tells Sherman that she considers herself middle class Another woman with a similar household income, mostly earned by her corporate-lawyer husband, describes her family's situation as "fine."
"I mean, there are all the bankers that are heads and heels, you know, way above us," she says. A third woman, with an even higher household income-two and a half million dollars a year-objects to Sherman's use of the word "affluent."
" ‘Affluent' is relative," the woman observes. Some friends of hers have recently flown off on vacation on a private plane. "That's affluence," she says."
The above is from an article in The New Yorker by Elizabeth Kolbert: Feeling Low The Psychology of Inequality.
Plumbers deserve more money than nurses. Good sanitation saves more lives, prevents illness, than nurses and doctor who are treating illness after the fact.
When we were first married I always tried to roughly plan a budget. We had a whole $25.00 extra left over each month after basic bills were paid. We weren't in section 8 housing, but it was a means tested apartment complex. It was kind of fun, and we managed. I still remember the excitement of being able to afford a pizza once a while.
Talk about welfare. My husband is a Marine (once a Marine, always a Marine). He fought in Viet Nam, had a relatively (in the whole big scheme of injuries) minor gunshot injury. The money and benefits the Veterans Administration gives him, us, for that injury...I am embarrassed to receive the benefits, but not so stupid that I am going to refuse it!
A friend said everybody receives "welfare" benefits in one form or another. The rich get tax write offs, put all their money in trusts for their children, the poor get welfare, big business get tax cuts, "and the beat goes on".
I haven't had a pay raise in 4 years. As everything else gets higher and higher, my income gets smaller and smaller. My health insurance premiums have doubled, and pays much less. My deductibles have risen dramatically.
Nurses are definitely part of the shrinking (and struggling) middle class. We are the link between 2 increasingly unequal extremes in America. On one side we have the working poor, such as Carla, who don't earn a livable wage, and only survive due to government assistance in one form or another. Between Carla and many nurses we have the working class that many forget about. They earn too much for government assistance (think $13/hr to $18/hr), but still struggle to meet all their financial obligations with the growing cost of living.
Above nurses, (who top out at around $95,000/yr at my employer working 36 hours a week...a little overtime easily bumps that to $110,000), are the professional upper middle class....these are the lawyers, administrators, successful physicians, and engineers that we think of as "rich". The extremely wealthy that Brownbook mentions in her article (those making multi-millions) tend to stay hidden. They use the 150,000-250,000 income bracket as a shield, and cry about how affected that category will be when tax adjustments are mentioned in Congress.
A completely different arm of the argument is the one that ApplewhiteRN brought up. I've been a nurse since before the crash in 2008. I remember the days of a 3-4% merit raise per year, plus a cost of living adjustment every other year. Our health insurance was affordable, and being admitted to the hospital was a flat $250 co-pay....MUCH different than what we have to budget for today.
None of this probably will change though. I *do* feel lucky to be making a very solid middle class salary. I work 4 hours of overtime per week, and brought home enough last year to stay on budget, pay extra on the mortgage, put away a decent chunk of savings, pay for some small remodeling around the house, and fund a vacation. We need to find a balance where we don't turn a complacent eye to inequality (vote people!), but still enjoy the life we've been given to live.
I had to laugh when I was working with a CNA who was really interested in watching and observing some of the procedures that we do as nurses. Not because she was interested, but because of what she said later.
I asked if she was in nursing school. Her response was, "Hopefully next semester. I love my job and all but I can't live on $9/hr. $30/hr would make things sooo much easier". She has the similar living situation from the article. I laughed because she had some strange idea that she would graduate from nursing school, transition to RN with our current employer, and be making $30/hr as a new grad....Oh, she's in for a shocker. I just whispered to her that no hospital in our area pays new grads anywhere near that...it would be many years before she'd see that unless she worked agency (which requires a minimum of 1 year experience).
Where the hell the public is getting our supposed pay rates is beyond me. Unless their just going by what they hear for California-which then they have to look at the cost of living...
I had to laugh when I was working with a CNA who was really interested in watching and observing some of the procedures that we do as nurses. Not because she was interested, but because of what she said later.
I asked if she was in nursing school. Her response was, "Hopefully next semester. I love my job and all but I can't live on $9/hr. $30/hr would make things sooo much easier". She has the similar living situation from the article. I laughed because she had some strange idea that she would graduate from nursing school, transition to RN with our current employer, and be making $30/hr as a new grad....Oh, she's in for a shocker. I just whispered to her that no hospital in our area pays new grads anywhere near that...it would be many years before she'd see that unless she worked agency (which requires a minimum of 1 year experience).
Where the hell the public is getting our supposed pay rates is beyond me. Unless their just going by what they hear for California-which then they have to look at the cost of living...
Oh, I don't know, New grad RNs make close to $30 here in the Midwest. And I've always been under the impression that the Midwest is smack dab in the middle of what average wages and COL is in the US.
Oh, I don't know, New grad RNs make close to $30 here in the Midwest. And I've always been under the impression that the Midwest is smack dab in the middle of what average wages and COL is in the US.
Huh?
I live in the mid west. New grads are making close to 23-25/hr. I am a registered nurse with over two years experience and I make less than 26/hr.
I live in the mid west. New grads are making close to 23-25/hr. I am a registered nurse with over two years experience and I make less than 26/hr.
Maybe western Michigan has higher wages/cost of living than the part of the Midwest you're from? Admittedly, I'm just guessing as to what RNs make around here, as I'm not a RN. Here, a new grad LPN will make over $20/hr and a LPN with three years experience will be around $24. I remember back when worked in the hospital in 2003 I heard new grad RNs talk about starting at $22-23/hr. I assume it's went up quite a bit since then
This woman that I know daughter is a military nurse and she makes a lot of money , it really depends on what type of nursing field your in ,but I know at the start you earn enough to have a livable wage and that's good enough for me . It sure as heck beaks living below the poverty line ;But I don't expected to get rich when I graduate ADN , I just assumed I'd be able to afford a roof over my head food to eat and pay bills , but I want to do this job to help people and for the good pay 23 /hr or even 20/hr sounds a lot better than what I'm making now .
Before I decided to go back to school I was a single mom raising two kids with no help from their dad. I lived with my mom rent free (So thankful for her), was on medicaid (paid 5$ to see a doctor or dentist), and had over 500$ a month with food stamps to feed my family (which was MORE than enough). Due to this though I was able to go back to school without paying a dime out of pocket. Grants were thrown at me and I kept my grades up and applied for and won many scholarships. Now that I'm working full time I'm living paycheck to paycheck. However, I feel a greater sense of independence and achievement. Do I miss government assistance? Absolutely! Would I ever want to go back where I was before nursing? Hell no!
But, I do agree that people have a false sense of how much we actually make. I remember asking a CNA when payday was and she replied "You know she's a nurse when she doesn't even know when payday is". She went on to clarify that since my bank account is stacked, I don't care about when we are paid. I probably had $5 in my account at the time lol
Anyone who thinks nurses make "big money" obviously doesn't really know people who ACTUALLY do make "big money."
Nurses make decent money; those with advanced certifications or those who work in high COL areas or those who work lots of crappy shifts and overtime can make low six figures. But "big money," no.
Nurses who write books which turn into best sellers might get into the big money category. But they really aren't typical nurses.
An acquaintance of mine had a husband who worked in the "re-insurance" industry. Don't ask me what that is. One year he made a $50 million dollar bonus. I'd call that "big money."
A few years later, I heard that they divorced and she took her half of the big money and was doing just fine and dandy. Unbeknownst to me, her husband apparently wasn't that great of a guy, so she was very happy to end the marriage. I say good for her.
TheCommuter, BSN, RN
102 Articles; 27,612 Posts
Perhaps it may be time to obtain a PRN gig on the side?