poverty level???

Nurses General Nursing

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:eek: I live in Oklahoma which cis supposed to be about number 49th in teacher salaries. I believe at my last recollection brand new teacher were starting out at about 29,000 a year. Now If Pattycakes and her husband are in fact teachers, and I do not mean of the Sunday School variety. Then they should be making at least 50,000 a year after 5 years in the profession. Teachers in our state do recieve yearly raises. They are not big ones but they are regular. Kind of like my annual 2% evaluation raise.

With the level of destitution that poor patty is complaining of I am thinking more like Teachers Aide.......

Hi Patty. I'm sorry that you find this board so hateful. I would recommend that instead of judging the entire board that you take each post on its merit. You'll find that not all the board as you put is hateful. You will find, like I have found from time to time, that you don't agree with everyone who posts their opinions or the way they post them. Perhaps you're just burned out from teaching after dealing with difficult teens. I know from personal experience that that sometimes can be a nightmare.

As I posted under your topic, I am rather surprised that a math specialist would be making only $25K with five years experience. The 2001 occupational outlook handbook from the bureau of labor statistics had the following information:

According to the American Federation of Teachers, beginning teachers with a bachelor's degree earned an average of $27,989 in the 1999-2000 school year. The estimated average salary of all public elementary and secondary school teachers in the 1999-2000 school year was $41,820. Private school teachers generally earn less than public school teachers.

It did point out that teacher's assistants can make anywhere from around $13K to $27K or so. Nursing assistants generally fall somewhere in that category or less in many cases. Many nursing assistants do have to apply for food stamps and Medicaid because they may be single mothers raising children on their on.

Before switching to nursing, have you thought about teaching at the elementary school level? What type of school where you teaching in before you went on leave?

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Comparing Nursing to bus driving is like comparing s**t to shinola! Patty, Get a grip and if you don't know what your talking about then get off the pot!

(or something like that).

Only those who nurse know what it's like.

-Russell

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You all know damn well there are Baylor programs out there. If someone is lucky enough to get one more power to them. I recently found a hospital near me that offers it......

I would have to work 2 12 hour shifts and get and get paid for 30. However, it is full....full.....full.

Why can't she be making crap money? Most of us do. H ELL I work with an RN who has 30 years experience, all at the same hospital. The average pay per hour at our hospital for nurses is 25.00 an hour, but she only makes 17.00.

Doesn' everyone remember the big post awhile back about salary.com? Many nurses where going to that site checking how much they should make for their area an then coming back here and saying they were not making anywhere close to that amount.

A bus driver and an RN have absolutely nothing in common, job wise and cannot be compared, especialy since you have never done at least one of those jobs. That remark was very demeaning to the profession of nursing.

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Specializes in Pediatric Rehabilitation.
Originally posted by akg2002

Here is what you said:

" My aunt made $62,000 last year, working 2 days a week"

"I brought home $1500 a month as a teacher"

" I expect to get about a 15,000 dollar pay raise"

"My sister-in-law makes $29/hr"

Then you said

"$1500/month = $18,000/yr or $8.65/hr =(your teacher pay)"

Yes I am a math teacher and I am going to give you a little lesson. See where I am from they take some things off from your pay. They are called retirement, taxes, etc etc. If you will look at my orginal post you will see that I said BRING HOME. If you are trying to make me look stupid, you have only done the opposite!

Here is something else you said:

$62,000/year = $5,167/month or $29.80/hr(for 40hrs/wk)

However, if it's figured on 2 days per week (assuming 12h/day), then it comes out to $49.68/hr. = (your aunt's pay as a nurse)

:eek: I don't know how they do it in your area, but here they pay you full time if you work 2 weekend nights. That is how it works here. I think most hospitals do it this way because it is hard to get people to work nights on the weekend. So there again you have only made yourself look stupid.

Maybe you need to go back to school and get a better education. Maybe I could tutor you in your math courses. THINK before you speak or write. Patty:eek: :eek: :eek:

Patty,

I'm still not feeling stupid; perhaps our definition of "stupidity" is different. I don't think the problem is with my math, so much as with your idealism of nursing. I DID make one mistake, that someone earlier pointed out: I figured a teacher's salary on 2080 hrs/yr, and teacher's do not work a full year, so that would raise your bring home salary to around $14/hr. My bad. Do you think teachers are the only ones subjected to taxes, retirement, etc? Not.

Nah, I still don't see where there was a problem with my math. Perhaps you saw a problem because you didn't like what it showed..i dunno. If there IS a problem with my math, I'd really appreciate your constructive criticism, so please show me the problem. Math has always been a strong point with me, so I really doubt there's a problem there. However, as with word problems, if the WORDING is SKEWED, the the answer won't work out correct.

As for the people on this bb being mean. YOU are the one that came to the bb and posted about nurses being whiners..YOU opened up the can of worms, not us. We may gripe and whine, but we are learning to stick together. When you've done a few months of nursing and had a few body fluids splashed on your rose colored glasses; when your take home pay is a bit less than you expected, THEN you'll be welcome to come whine with us..until then, I'd advise you to walk in some nursemates first.

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Originally posted by PhantomRN

You all know damn well there are Baylor programs out there.

What is a Baylor program?:confused:

I sincerely don't know.

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Specializes in LDRP; Education.

Whoa! Have I missed out on the fur-flying! Damn! How'd that happen?

Anyway, my humble opinion.

I've grown to get tired of the old nursing debate. Yes, it is in a state of crisis and the conditions suck generally speaking , however, there are facilities which don't encounter the horrible MOT, bad patients, etc. I worked in a small community hospital in an affluent neighborhood and the conditions were excellent. You would not have known there was a nursing shortage anywhere else in the country. Likewise, at my other job in a Level 2 inner-city hospital, the conditions were HORRIBLE and the staff turnover made it worse. The patients were high risk and were violent. We had MOT every day. These two facilities were worlds apart different.

Patty, I think that you have some valid points r/t teaching vs. nursing. I think Colleen10 hit the nail on the head when she stated that every profession has it's down side and pitfalls, as well as benefits. Nursing is good yes, in that there are several options available to you in how and where you practice. Nursing is bad, yes, in that we are typically not paid QUITE what we are worth, relative to computer programmers and others in the business world. I think that is where the anger and frustration comes in. We as educated nurses see other individuals with the same amount of education (sometimes less) in a different profession making more than us. And naturally, we see nursing as more important than that profession. But, as I stated in another thread where some people thought $80,000 was a good start to bedside nurse pay, nursing is not the single, most difficult, most stressful and most horrible job out there. There are people who are in a relatively high level position within another profession who don't see even close to $80,000. As nurses, our perception of stress and work is thwarted as a result of what we encounter every day. Think about it. As a nurse, you can imagine your most stressful day at work. Now pretend you switched professions and you are now an IS professional. Your worst day is that the system crashes and you are paged at 3am to go fix it. No one's life is in danger; no one died; you won't be sued if you screw up (you might not be promoted, or you might be fired) but you will be able to find a job. Compared to nursing, that's not as a bad. However, to the IS guy, that's comparable to the nurses' worst day. It's ALL RELATIVE.

So Patty, I think you are optimistic about nursing and that is good; some nurses may think that teaching is a far better option. Myself? I am looking to leave clinical nursing and go into education because of the conditions, and higher pay. But I think you have to realize you are making these claims about nursing at the height of a nursing shortage and at a time when patients are sicker and yet living longer. The average age of a nurse is 46, making most of our working nurses near retirment. So I think you have to understand where the perceived anger from this board is coming from.

Take it with a grain of salt.

And good luck in the nursing profession.

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Specializes in NICU, Infection Control.

I have absolutely brilliant conversations w/my premies. A little one-sided, perhaps, but at least I know MY side is great. ;)

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Specializes in ER, NICU, NSY and some other stuff.

Did snybody elsa notice that pattycakes has closed her thread and it has disapeared and now she is logging on under a different name????

I am still getting hateful little private messages from her, is anyone else?

She keeps telling me how hateful I am and how misquoted my facts are....

Just so she knows my take home pay is about $856 every 2 weeks wow she sure is going to make a big pay jump from her $1500 a month she is bringing home huh. That is after taxes and insurance and I think my net for the year will be about $34,000, of coourse this includes my whole 8 weeks of maternity leave I took off which I did go in twice and work shifts during. Now mind you that my "maternity leave" was my accumulated vacation and EIB time as we do not have paid maternity leave.

I think patty or akg2002 as she is now referring to herself is a total hoot. I am also glad she isn't my kids teacher since she has absolutley no tolerance for any sort of backtalk.

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I wondered where the origional post had gone :confused:

I'm kinda glad it's gone though, she seems like one of those people you just can't debate with. Kinda like trying to tell a psychotic person whats reality and what isn't... you'll just never get through.

Logs in on her sisters username???? Never heard of her either. And why couldn't she use her own username???

Isn't there a psychiatric term for this type of bizarre behavior...

Heather

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I am always suspicious of people posting under one name and saying they are another person or someone's sister, hurband, ect.

I too was getting nasty PMs from Patty telling me I shouldn't pretend I know about teaching and that she *KNEW* I got OT.

Wish I *KNEW* where it was!:D

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I hear teachers complaining all the time about how little they make and how many hours they put in. They also have off work during the summer,all the holidays, 1 week @ Christmas and 1 week @spring break. I have been a RN since 1979. Working in Norfolk, VA hospital, last year full-time I made $38,000. I have to put up with disrespect from patients, family and doctors. I have been vomited on, spit on, curssed at, and hit in the face. Nurses deal with every body fliud known to man and risk their life daily. I have never been able to take a week off at Christmas. My children grew up with their mom working when their friends mom or dad who taught were home during school breaks.

I have a lot of respect for teachers. I can read and write and add because of them and so can my children. I did not go into nursing for the money and teachers do not teach for the amount they make. Each profession is there for a service to the public.

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Hi RN>20yrs. I agree with you that many of us become nurses for the public's benefit. However, would you agree that with all our pain and suffering in providing quality patient care, we should also have good incomes or salaries, good benefits, and improved working conditions so that we can have a good quality of life after we've worked hard to provide that good care?

RN, don't you feel that you deserve more than the $38K you're currently making as a 20+ year nurse? Your post indicates that you deserve more. I see nothing wrong with wanting more money and requesting or even in some cases demanding it. Most nurses are not requesting anything beyond reason. We just want salaries and incomes on parity with our experience, skills, and knowledge or wisdom.

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