$8.25 an hour...*** is this normal?

Nursing Students CNA/MA

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I had an interview with a LTC center in Long Beach, CA. I am a new CNA but have two years of private duty care giving experience. They said the starting pay was $8.25 per hour with no benefits.... okay please tell me she was just low balling me and that CNA's in Los Angeles don't make that much money? I was hoping to make at least $10. But if its only $8.25 I will waitress my way to LVN school.

Specializes in Wound Care.

Yup! I already applied for that. Thank you!

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I work as a ma/na and make $20 an hour. I work in a jail though.

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Specializes in ER, Med-surg.

I was offered around $8.00/hr at an ALF, but that was an ALF, I've never been offered less than $9.00 for anything outside of ALF. I would personally be offending and start applying at McDonald's. What's the minimum wage where you live? In Florida it's $7.79, you'd do better to flip burgers and not be responsible for another person's well-being.

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That seems real low. I've worked as a PCT for 8 years at the same hospital and dept. When I first started back in 2004 I stared off making $8.10 an hr and that was with experience. 2012 I'm making $12.72 an hr. And I live in Texas and not in a big metro city.

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If you have two years experience being a care taker, and you're being offered only minimum wage, then that isn't fair. I hope you didn't pay for your CNA training, because if you did, then that would suck. I'm extremely out of luck, because I don't have any experience and I am passed my state exam for CNA back in November.

If you really want to get into the medical field, then take any job and go to an LVN or RN program part-time.

California isn't the best market for CNAs, and the Los Angeles area is extremely bad.

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California has an abundance of something that has always pushed wages down. I use to drive a truck and they would pay these folks $8hr to haul tomatoes during the tomato season. I never drove tomato trucks for that reason. Last summer I made $12hr driving a truck out here in rural Oklahoma, but that's because there is an abundance of dumb uneducated people willing to work for nothing. I make $9.50hr as a CNA here and I love it, but the pay does suck. I paid all my tuition with my dump truck money last summer and took a break.

Did you ever try cross country OTR, or did you just do local. I did some research, and even trucking companies that pay for you to get your CDL pay up $37,000 in your first year. Once again, that's interstate trucking with a CDL. I didn't know you could be uneducated obtain a CDL. The test requires reading skills.

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There are going to be 200 people applying for that one position. I hope they at least have five openings. Don't mean to sound negative, but I think that the OP would be better off sticking with her server job and going to a nursing program (LVN or RN).

Even with if she becomes an LVN, she can use her credits towards RN school when she is ready. You can't even use credits you get in a CNA program towards an LVN program in California. I don't know how it works in other states.

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Specializes in Wound Care.
If you have two years experience being a care taker, and you're being offered only minimum wage, then that isn't fair. I hope you didn't pay for your CNA training, because if you did, then that would suck. I'm extremely out of luck, because I don't have any experience and I am passed my state exam for CNA back in November.

If you really want to get into the medical field, then take any job and go to an LVN or RN program part-time.

California isn't the best market for CNAs, and the Los Angeles area is extremely bad.

No, thank god I did't pay a lot for my CNA training or I would be MAD! I was all signed up and had paid my deposit for the CNA class at a local adult school. The program was $1500 and I paid a $200 deposit. A few days later I was online and ran across the goodwill website and it said they were offering a CNA training program for $150 TOTAL. I sent in the application, did two interviews and was lucky enough to get in. Paid $150 total and this included CNA and HHA and uniforms, shoes, watch, state test, CPR certification...the whole nine yards. I called the other school back and got my deposit back. I passed the state test and received my certification last month. While I was doing my CNA I was also taking a phlebotomy and EKG couse at the local community college. Passed those too so now I am a CNA, phlebotomist and have EKG certification. I start the LVN program in a few weeks and plan to work my way thought LVN school.

I have been applying to PCT positions in hospitals. I have had 5 interviews and most of them said they will be contacted people back after the new year. So at this point I'm just waiting....every job I interviewed paid between $14-$18 an hour

I know the only thing that even got my foot in the door at many of these hospitals was the phlebotomy and EKG training.

So my advice is if you have the time and can handle the school load get those too. It was sooooo hard (I's a single mom and in the middle of a divorce with no support system) but I knocked them all out and it paid off. I am sure one of these jobs will pan out for me.

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Specializes in Case mgmt., rehab, (CRRN), LTC & psych.
You can't even use credits you get in a CNA program towards an LVN program in California. I don't know how it works in other states.
I completed my LVN training in southern California in 2005, and all of the CNAs in my class were granted advanced placement and credit for a portion of the first quarter (fundamental nursing bedside skills such as bed-making, bed baths, transfers, showers, toileting, vital sign checks, etc.).
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The amount of money exchanging hands in a hospital has to be 10 times higher than a nursing home. Simple things like the food served are drastically different. I bet the nursing home where I work serves a $1.50 dinner while the hospital food costs upwards of $5. Driving a truck over the road for 15 years is enough. Local trucking jobs doing farm work in California pay horribly. I have no idea how non English speaking citizens get a CDL ANYWHERE, but they do. It is against federal law to drive a truck if you don't speak English. I personally witnessed a Federal DOT cop questioning a eastern European truck driver from the east coast and he couldn't answer simple questions like "what is your load? Made me mad, but what can you do? Under the law he was supposed to shut him down, but he didn't.

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People are lined up around the block to be CNAs. What isn't appealing about a job that requires only a month's worth of schooling? You get to wear scrubs! And a name tag! And a stethoscope! And sometimes a clipboard to record vitals!

Corporations love us because we do rough work for piddly pay. And heck, if we get bitter and quit... the next CNA in line gets their scrubs and name tag and the cycle starts again!

You could hire two "PCT's" for the price of one LVN! It's just like truckinusa says... Why hire someone who costs more when there are others who are willing to work practically for free?

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