Nursing pay..Check this out!

[FrankRN2017]

Why is nursing pay across the board not standardized? What I am referring to is, why do nurses get paid more or less according to the cost of living across the USA and not according to skills a nurse possess? I am not sure for other nurses but my quality of care does not fluctuate as our pay does across state lines etc. If a nurse was getting paid a lot more for the same job in a different city then moves to a city where the pay is much lower for the same job, are we allowed to decrease the quality of our care just like the pay decrease the nurse will receive?

[YouknowwhyImhere]

Also, this is with all job fields, not just nursing. This is why minimum wage varies from state to state too.

[nehneh14]

This has been my experience, as well. The quality of my parent's healthcare is SIGNIFICANTLY less in TN than it was when they lived in WI. Quality of care most definitely varies between regions.

[nehneh14]

Our office that was going to be servicing the child was located just outside of a major city. It was the most uneasy discharge I ever had and it was something that should have been very straight forward. Overnight NG feeds to supplement day-time PO intake. And this is a national company that claims to have standardized processes and levels of service across the country. The people I was dealing with didn't even understand that it was their job to respond to the parents if they called with a question or problem with the feeding pump that belonged to our company.

Having lived and worked in the south, midwest and northwest, I definitely found customer service and professionalism generally lacking in the south as compared to the other regions with which I have experience. Your anecdote does not surprise me. They just seem to operate on a slower speed there, with God as their co-pilot. :) When I worked at Vanderbilt, the best clinicians were usually transplants.

[Newbie39]

The only problem with this is that we as a military family have had to move several times and have noticed that for example it is just as expensive to love in Florida as Washington state, or any other state we've lived in but I make $11 less/hr for my nursing job currently than where I came from. It is only slightly cheaper if you purchase a home, but renting to include all other utilities, gas and groceries are identical and at times even more in my less paying state.

[Silver_Rik, ASN, RN]

Take a look at this article

Nurses stretched to 'breaking point' over pay, finds RCN survey | News | Nursing Times

We are not paid enough is my beef here, ma'am's and sir's.

Not paid enough isn't the same thing as saying a nurse in Cheyenne, Wy should be paid the same as a nurse in San Francisco.

Also it's not just cost-of-living. Sometimes professionals have to be paid more to come work in low cost of living areas because they are not considered as desirable places to live. It might actually take higher pay and bonuses to get someone to work in the middle of Wyoming or in remote Appalachia.

[SpankedInPittsburgh, DNP, RN]

Yep, if I'm taking a job in Po=Dunk middle of no-wheres-ville there better be something I want there and if the only thing is cash it better be a big pot of gold