$15/hr

NurseKatie08, MSN · Jan 21, 2014

Hard to say as rates/cost of living vary per region, but it seems very low to me. I live in MA and make significantly more than that as a RN. What are rents like the in the area where you'll be working?

lemur87 · Jan 21, 2014

Typically a travel contract will give you a low hourly (taxed) and raise your housing/per diem (untaxed). This is typically to your benefit as you get more untaxed income.

trackhead, APRN · Jan 23, 2014

Texas must pay horrible. I was getting 27/hr, 3300 housing, 350 insurance in the Tacoma area.

Underthemoonicp6 · Jan 24, 2014

What agency are you working for?

txrn23 · Jan 30, 2014

Medical Staffing Network

txrn23 · Jan 30, 2014

Thanks for the reply! The subsidy I'm told covers housing, meals, and travel allowance. This will be my first contract.

Guest219794 · Mar 4, 2014

It is essentially a tax scam: They are giving you a lot of money on which you don't pay income tax, and they don't pay payroll tax.

Look at it this way: They could just as easily give you a $500 monthly allowance, and pay you an extra $10 an hour. But, they would be paying payroll tax on an extra $360, and you would be paying income tax on an extra $360.

I had a similar deal going, and looked into it. As far as I can tell, it is tax evasion, and you could, theoretically, be held responsible for extra taxes. Unlikely, but possible.

And, if you work OT, your rate sucks.

A lot of recruiters are a bit like care salesman who focus on your monthly payment, and try to obscure the price of the car.

In reality:

A = Amount they are payed by the facility.

B = Amount they pay you.

C = Their taxes, expenses, etc...

A - (B+C) = their profit.

Their is no magic- the pie is a certain size, and there are a number of ways you can slice it up.

Guest219794 · Mar 4, 2014

The links below do a pretty good job explaining the motivation for a low hourly wage, and making up the difference with high "expense" reimbursement.

While this is legit to a point, obviously at some point it becomes a tax dodge. I make $30 dollars an hour at my per-diem, 36 hours a week. They could pay me $10 an hour in wages, and $720 weekly in expenses to cover all the pens I have to buy. This would save them $250 a week, and put an extra $100 a week in my pocket. But, if either of us was audited, a federal employee would point out that the allowable weekly allowance for pens is $2 weekly, and unless I show receipts for $720 a week for pens, I oe a whole bunch of taxes.

BTW- I am not saying not to take the offer, just that you should understand it. People evade paying taxes all the time. For example, every time you buy something online, and don't pay sales tax, you owe it to your state. But, since the chance of getting caught is so slim, nobody ever pays this tax.

If you do take this offer, check to see what happens if you are called off. Whether you work 34 or 36 hours in a week, your expenses will remain the same. Will they still pay $875 if the facility calls you off?

business owners should to expect an employee to cost an additional 25% to 30% on top of base salary each year.

http://www.snagajob.com/resources/what-you-cost-your-employer/

NedRN · Mar 4, 2014

There are some risks to this type of compensation, but virtually all risks are on the agency side. If they are careful, there are no issues. Currently there are over 20 agencies being audited so the IRS is taking a very close look at some of the practices. Typically agencies are the deep pockets that the IRS goes after rather than trying to squeeze each traveler for more.

One current exception to this general statement is with Parallon (formerly All About Staffing). They had a practice unrelated to low hourly / high stipend where they paid a health insurance stipend tax free in lieu of health insurance (which they don't provide). This is legit if they have proof that the traveler is paying for insurance, but they didn't bother with that step. The IRS is requiring them to issue revised W-2s from 2010 forward. This is a big nuisance of course which may require that you revise your 1040s for the affected years as well. Not much money involved.

The other big exception is that although low hourly / high stipend is legal if done correctly, a large number of travelers do not have the required tax homes. In fact, a lot of recruiters coach travelers on how to fill out the residency form: "just use your parent's address". It is possible that the IRS will require agencies to revise W-2s for those travelers if they can verify the lack of a tax home. They may even audit all travelers for a really bad acting agency although this is not so likely if they can get a large settlement out of the agency. Some other agency practices such as resetting the clock after a year by requiring 30 days off (which does not reset the clock) could also come back to bite such travelers.

The bottom line here is that recruiters are not tax experts to be relied on, and that even practices that meet IRS guidelines from an agency perspective, may not pass muster in a traveler audit. That tax home is all important if you accept tax free stipends or housing (a taxable benefit if you are an itinerant traveler without a tax home). If you haven't been keeping up a legitimate tax home and following associated rules, you could be up for a huge tax liability. In the past, the only way to get caught was if you were audited for some other reason and you said too much about travel contracts or had a really sharp agent auditing you (that happened fairly regularly but low risk as audits in our tax bracket don't happen often). That may no longer be true.

Bluebolt · Mar 5, 2014

That pay rate seems to be fair from what I've heard from different agencies regarding first time travellers. There are certain states that do pay more. Texas, Georgia, Florida, The Carolinas are ones that doesn't pay quite as much but the cost of living is supposed to be more reasonable. The other commenters have described pretty in depth why your hourly rate is so little and your stipend is so much. It sounds to be right on the line of legal with a pay rate of $15, $17 was the least I had heard of before. Keep in mind that if you plan on working Overtime, your OT pay is only about $22.50....

NedRN · Mar 5, 2014

If OT is available and desired, the actual overtime rate should always be negotiated separately. It is nuts to base an overtime rate on an artificial base rate of $15 an hour where the overtime rate actually billed is likely to be on the order of $90 an hour. Explain it to your recruiter that all their fixed costs are paid when the contracted hours are worked and so is the profit margin they considered fair when calculating pay. Therefore all OT hours are pure profit for the agency and should be incentivized by a fair OT rate.

If OT is available and desired, I would not settle for less than $50 an hour OT. Heck, a flat bill rate will still cover that and leave a profit for the agency much less a facility contract that bills more for OT.