How much do YOU think nurses are worth?

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Personally, I think nurses are grossly underpaid. I am 10 years in and I think I should be earning a bare minimum of $150k/yr. I hear what my friends/relatives are making, who have degrees in business, human resources, communications, marketing, PR, etc. (I'm in NYC) and they make so much more than me. Additionally, they have cushy schedules which allow them a better work/life balance, and they generally talk favorably about their jobs and report manageable stress levels at work.

Are you satisfied with your pay? What do you think nurses are "worth" (in regards to salary)?

Iv starts are so easy medics do them all day every day, heck even lvn can do em in some states. The ego on here is insane. Emts and ma's along with phlebotomists and bio-trained janitors and countless other techs have absorbed nursings whole scope. The ego and entitlement from you says it all.

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I'm a new nurse and I understand about supply and demand . Why would an employer pay you more when they have many nurses especially new grads who will take your position? I work for one of the highest payers hospitals in my area and I'm happy with my pay . I earned little more at my previous job but that's because I worked a lot of hours and I was not happy at all . Too many hours ,lots of patients and very bad management. Money is not everything , but if you want to a make that kind of money you make to look another career that requires advance degree.

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Speaking from my perspective as a family/marital law paralegal for the 13 years prior to becoming a nurse, I can asure you that many doctors earn in excess of one million per year.

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Specializes in Cardiac (adult), CC, Peds, MH/Substance.
Don't forget that most nurses in the US work for private hospitals which give them no medical/dental insurance, no medical perks of anykind when they leave. No life insurance unless you now will pay for it privately. All of those extras, including vacation time, sick time, etc. etc. can add another 40% to your base salary.

Does anyone have this experience? I'm not sure "majority" is accurate. I can say it's not true of any major hospital around here.

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Specializes in Cardiac (adult), CC, Peds, MH/Substance.
Yes if you think one nurse salary should allow support for multiple children and to buy a house and car than yes it's not only greedy. It preposterous!

This person is trollololololing. Do not throw food under the bridge.

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$12/hour forklift driver wants something that he/she lacks (read: money and a better job

This is bit off topic but before I was nurse I was a $7/hr forklift driver and sometimes I look on that nostalgically because then I knew why I did the job and what value it had, now as an insurance company nurse I spend 90% of my time producing documentation to meet compliance standards which have zero value to our members. ( and also zero intrinsic value )

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Economics is the study of scarcity. There is never enough of anything to satisfy everyone. Labor like any other commodity is a matter of supply and demand. It is also a matter of what the market can bear. No matter how good a deal you are offering on a Rolls Royce there are people who cannot afford it at any price.

That being said you are worth whatever you are willing to work for. If you are being paid $80,000 a year and you continue to work for that then that is what you are worth by your own determination. Nobody is twisting your arm. You could go be a movie actress and be paid $5 million a movie if you like so long as somebody is willing to pay you that amount. If hospital;s decided to pay only $20,000 a year what would happen? Nurses would quit and do other jobs. There would be a shortage and they would offer higher salaries. Simple free market concepts.

Unfortunately there is a monkey wrench fouling up the works. Government and insurance companies. Since they are actually paying the bills (the patient never sees the real bill nor rarely pays it) they have a lot to say that influences wage levels for everyone in medicine. They limit competition through requiring a Certificate of Need supposedly to lower costs yet paradoxically raise costs. They also limit how many doctors graduate each year. If you think wages are low in your field now, wait until we get to a single payer system where a layer of government bureaucrats are added to the mix.

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Specializes in Emergency Room, Specialty Infusions.

Nurses are grossly underpaid. I have been a nurse for 41 years. A couple of years ago I put in for a position at a Level I Trauma ER. With my BSN and ALL the certificates required to work in the ER, and my CEN, they offered $23.50. I didn't mean to laugh out loud, but I did. I told them I was making $21.50 ten years ago, same state. Have the wages only gone up that much in ten years? "Well, you know we're real poor here."

Nursing is a great career. It stays with you all you life. But hospitals put too much on us. I have not been back to work for three years. And since my lumbar spine, c-spine, right shoulder, both wrists and and both feet are destroyed from all the heavy lifting, walking, standing on concrete floor, repetitive motion, I'm not going back. And please, not one person tell me how proper body mechanics could of prevented it....because I did, and it doesn't. I've also been physically assaulted by and MD and patients.

Yep, nurses are worth their weight in gold.

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Part of the problem in nursing is the multiple ways one can be a nurse. Should someone who went to school for two years get 150,000. Probably not. If the wages went up to that degree the resulting impact on Healthcare costs would be staggering.

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Specializes in Cardiac (adult), CC, Peds, MH/Substance.
Nurses are grossly underpaid. I have been a nurse for 41 years. A couple of years ago I put in for a position at a Level I Trauma ER. With my BSN and ALL the certificates required to work in the ER, and my CEN, they offered $23.50. I didn't mean to laugh out loud, but I did. I told them I was making $21.50 ten years ago, same state. Have the wages only gone up that much in ten years? "Well, you know we're real poor here."

Nursing is a great career. It stays with you all you life. But hospitals put too much on us. I have not been back to work for three years. And since my lumbar spine, c-spine, right shoulder, both wrists and and both feet are destroyed from all the heavy lifting, walking, standing on concrete floor, repetitive motion, I'm not going back. And please, not one person tell me how proper body mechanics could of prevented it....because I did, and it doesn't. I've also been physically assaulted by and MD and patients.

Yep, nurses are worth their weight in gold.

Proper body mechanics don't prevent it. NPR did a month long series on nursing injuries a year or two ago. They just do a little mitigation.

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Salary also goes by where you live.

isn't it like places in cali that a BSN can earn you like close to a 100k?

I know over in my lands its 68k average salary for a 2 year out of school RN grad.

I could understand though if you became say a NP to be making around 150k.

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Specializes in Cardiac (adult), CC, Peds, MH/Substance.
You have to understand, not even has the same views as YOU. Just because they are expressing an opposing viewpoint, does not make them a troll. You seem very closed minded.

If you read my posts, you'll find that I don't disagree that in many cases, nurses are not underpaid. So, that's unlikely the reason I thought it looked like trolling.

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