Ok, so as I'm scrolling these forums, I keep seeing posters post things like "$30/hr is normal for a staff nurse", etc.
In Indiana as a RN(BSN) with 3.5 years experience (2 years M/S, 1.5 years Periop), I only make $23/hour... and I was excited about that until I saw these posts! I started at $17.78/hour!
Obviously I'm disillusioned and need to know what a good pay rate to ask for is, because I thought $30/hour would be good...
Well,I am in homecare and I started at $33/hr but after 7 years pay has dropped to $28/hr.
Employers are blaming it on decreasing reimbursement rates from government programs,namely Medicaid.
That's the tune I hear both in my prn hh job and my reg ltc job. I've had steadily decreasing wages over the years as well. And they let us know they can hire a brand new nurse for much less than what I'm making. I can't afford to be jobless for long
For reference. I live in a coastal metro suburban area in the PNW. My mortgage (and mine is low) is $1500, WSGE are $400-500/mo. So you can imagine it'd be quite different making $22/hr here vs where you are.
Since I started (in 2012), my hospital has raised the starting rate from $17.78 to $19.98 for brand new RNs. The other major hospital system (I heard) has an even lower starting rate.
I was basically forced to go back to NP school because I couldn't afford my living expenses AND my loan repayments without working less than 55 hours/week, EVERY week of the year. And that'd be just to break even! (No vacations, clothes shopping, spending money, etc.)
That's exactly what I'm afraid of. :/ I didn't get into nursing for the money by any means...but I definitely want to be able to pay my bills and pay down the terrifying amount of student loans I have. It looks like there will be a lot of overtime for me in the near future. I currently work for one of the hospital systems as a tech, but I plan on applying to positions at both systems just to see what I can get! I've always wanted to go the NP route but wanted to get some of my undergrad loans paid down first and get plenty of experience under my belt. I'm currently renting at about $600 a month (luckily splitting rent/utilities with my boyfriend). Thanks for giving me a glimpse into how it's been for you! I definitely need to get my ducks in a row and budget like crazy it sounds like!
Unless you work in Iowa, your pay is pretty good!! Seriously, Iowa pays its nurses 52 out of 50 states---the wages are behind Guam and US Virgin Islands!
Unless you work in Iowa, your pay is pretty good!! Seriously, Iowa pays its nurses 52 out of 50 states---the wages are behind Guam and US Virgin Islands!
Did you mean 53/50? What about DC? Would that make it 54/50?
Anyway, pretty low! I would have thought perhaps Mississippi.
My base pay is 22$ + 4$ night differential, + 2$ weekend differential I make about 25.00 an hour on average. Apparently this is common for my experience and it's even less for GN 18$-20$.
It is due to go up every year and of course once I have my BSN, as right now I only have my ADN.
I was offered a job on Denver, co in the children's ER making 32$. Among a few other perks....
I had to turn it down Bc hubby was weeks away
From finishing his schooling. He is now a licensed paramedic.
I also want to say, it's important, that we remember to build each other up, not tear each other down. It's important to remember as well that there are many different t things that affect our pay and that it's hard to compare ones wages to another. Unless you were hired on to the same unit, same day, with same experience, and same education, there really won't be much of a comparison.
OP, don't let what others say make you feel bad. That's what I originally posted and that's what I stand by.
I used to work full time in the CVICU in Alabama as a new grad. I typically brought home $700/week after taxes and such. The starting base pay for a new grad was $17.25/hr, terrible I know.
No matter how low your "cost of living" is said to be Starbucks doesn't give a damn, you'll pay $5 for that cup of coffee. Delta Airlines doesn't care either, you'll pay that same flight cost as a nurse getting $50/hr in NYC.
I was eager to go traveling because some rural hospitals like the one I was at take advantage of this cost of living calculator and pretty much keep you broke all the time.
Now as a traveler even when I take travel contracts in Tennessee, Georgia (low cost of living places) I still bring home $1500 a week after taxes. Go traveling, stop working for hospital charity.
Now factor in the aging of a large cohort of baby boomer nurses who will be retiring and you have big trouble finding enough nurses.
The same increased average age is true of the general population as well. Who is going to be taking care of these people when large numbers of baby boomers retire and become eligible for Medicare?
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^^This^^
Prior to entering NS I was a Medicare Analyst. I looked at the Medicare beneficiary health data all day long. The boomers are about to cause an enormous shortage, and not to be crude by the cohort right behind them are going to be riddled with HTN/Diabetes/KD and heart problems (Even more so in the South and Midwest where nurses are underpaid, go figure). Going into nursing was a very calculated move on my part based on the numbers, when you sit and look at the data all day you begin to realize how beneficial it could be to be an RN in 10-15 years. I know that my first year will be rocky. I have to move to a low-wage area where I can get that first hospital job without too much competition. With all this being said, I do find patient care and healthcare very interesting and rewarding, regardless of the pay.:)
Specializes in burn ICU, SICU, ER, Trauma Rapid Response.
I think you are wrong about an oversupply of nurses as well. You may believe that, but where do the facts lie? Nurses in general make more than the median salary in this country by quite a bit. That doesn't happen with an oversupply. It is the relative good pay compared to the educational level required for entry that caused wait lists at every nursing school in the country, not propaganda.
First nurses are very underpaid relative to their level of responsibility. Comparing our salary to median income isn't useful. We should be compared to other fields who have a similar amount of responsibility.
There is an over supply nurses and there has never been a shortage of nurses, at least not in the 20 years I have been paying attention.
Evidence for the over supply is the large number of unemployed nurses, (50% of grads in California alone), stagnant wages, and declining working conditions what we call all feel and observe.
It is often the case that supply and demand imbalance corrections cause overshooting of optimal supply, but that has not happened. If you look at the average workload of nurses, you can also readily see that we don't have enough nurses to meet the need.
We have plenty of nurses to fill the need. Plenty of unemployed nurses who would love to come and help us with our work loads. But they are not being hired. Even larger number of nurses employed in other fields who left nursing because of the poor working conditions and low pay.
While much blame for that can be placed on the employer (who are also living with competition with other healthcare facilities), unionization, staffing ratio laws, and research demonstrating increased morbidity and mortality with current staffing levels, there is a groundswell of support for better staffing. Now factor in the aging of a large cohort of baby boomer nurses who will be retiring and you have big trouble finding enough nurses.
There are and will be plenty of nurses. We can look to the example of the California Department of Corrections who, in the mid-late 90's at the height of the supposed nursing shortage (no actual shortage existed) solved their severe nursing staffing shortage by simply raising their pay, by a lot. Now I haven't worked there but my guess is that nurses don't seek jobs in San Quinton caring for the worst scum on the earth for fun.
Once they raised wages they had no problem hiring nurses, and still don't. Plus they saved themselves a lot of money for not paying so much OT and agency nurses. Even a look at their job opening today shows only several dozen job opening for nurses, as compared to hundreds previously.
As for the ground swell for support of better staffing, well good luck with that. In my career I have only ever seen two things improve staffing, state law as in California, and a good strong union.
The same increased average age is true of the general population as well. Who is going to be taking care of these people when large numbers of baby boomers retire and become eligible for Medicare?
What do you mean who will take care of them? Nurses will. We can have all the nurses we need by simply paying them well and improving working conditions. We have examples of this already.
You may be basing your belief for your theory on the huge disconnects from the economic downturn starting in 2008. This did indeed obscure the fundamental underlying nursing shortage. Unemployed folks lost their health insurance, and frightened employed workers deferred health care. Frightened retired nurses came back into the workforce.
Ya I know what happened in 2008. What that did was simply move the long planed for day of the glut of nurses up a few years. What it also did was cause an immediate change (for the worse) in management's treatment of nurses and stagnant wages and declining overall compensation through the raising of insurance premiums and decreased retirement contributions from the employer.
In 2007 my (then) hospital had a non contributory pension plan, reasonable 401K matching (up to 8%), good health insurance at a fair price. In 2009 they had none of those things. Plus management's attitude went from "How can we make things better?" to "suck it up or hit the door" pretty much overnight. My 26 bed SICU went from 27 full time openings in 2007 to zero full time opening in 2009.
My state created a bunch of new nursing programs. Schools who never considered a nursing program created one. For example the Milwaukee School of Engineering created a nursing program with help from state and federal grants. Our local technical college went from graduating one class every other year, to a class every year, to 3 classes a year within 5 years. Also with taxpayer money. Several of the state universities also when from one class a year to two or three classes a year, plus they started a bunch of programs like Accelerated BSN (street to RN in 12 months) and direct entry masters program (whose grads nobody wants to hire). Many, many of these new grads were and are unable to find nursing jobs.
The contingent workforce industry is like a canary for employment conditions. The number of travel nurses dropped by fully half after 2008 and so did average bill rates for travelers. In the last two years, not only has the industry recovered, but bill rates now exceed those from 2007 by a good bit on average. That doesn't happen with an oversupply.
Sure it does, exactly how it happened in the late 90's when any RN could walk into any hospital and get hired on the spot and when the hospitals where yelling about a "nursing shortage". It can happen in an over supply when, because of an improving economy, nurses have other employment options (or their spouses do) and choose to reject the poor working conditions and relatively low pay being offered by nursing. Plentiful job openings tell you nothing at all about the number of nurses available.
For staff nurses, pay didn't really drop significantly during the downturn. Large industries do not turn on a dime and there is a lot of lag involved with supply and demand when we are talking about close to 3 million employed nurses. The underlying nursing shortage led to fairly fast moving pay increases in the 1990s that are still having an impact today. Good pay brought men into a field where they are still a minority (including me anecdotally). Until I see real pay start dropping, I'd have to say that on that basis alone, your theory is without merit. While real pay is flat for all workers, it is still rising for nurses. Due to demand
Well you have clearly stated the official line. I just don't buy it. I have worked as a staff RN in 4 states, two countries, and as a traveler in 6 or 7 other states. I have a vast network of nursing friends around the country and what we see and experience doesn't match the official line.
Prior to entering NS I was a Medicare Analyst. I looked at the Medicare beneficiary health data all day long. The boomers are about to cause an enormous shortage, and not to be crude by the cohort right behind them are going to be riddled with HTN/Diabetes/KD and heart problems (Even more so in the South and Midwest where nurses are underpaid, go figure). Going into nursing was a very calculated move on my part based on the numbers, when you sit and look at the data all day you begin to realize how beneficial it could be to be an RN in 10-15 years. I know that my first year will be rocky. I have to move to a low-wage area where I can get that first hospital job without too much competition. With all this being said, I do find patient care and healthcare very interesting and rewarding, regardless of the pay.:)
Wow, talk about research before choosing a profession! Well done!
I simply looked at what my roommate (a British L&D nurse working in Los Angeles) was making doing agency every shift, found out I could get a degree in 2 years flat (with my prior college), that California would pay for it in full, and I was sold. I also had hopes that I would find the work personally rewarding, but it has turned out to be just a job. Which isn't a bad thing.
Hoosier_RN, MSN
3,968 Posts
That's the tune I hear both in my prn hh job and my reg ltc job. I've had steadily decreasing wages over the years as well. And they let us know they can hire a brand new nurse for much less than what I'm making. I can't afford to be jobless for long