$15 Min Wage - Effect on RNs

God help us all ...

I would like to hear other nurses input and opinion on the matter, if nothing else but to help me from catastrophizing this ~ Thank You

Too late.

COLA has risen and wages have surpressed; most nurses have been making the same amount of money OR LESS for the past 20 years.

Many costs have risen, and if outside costs are controlled while wages go up; it wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing.

These issues of wage suppression and uncheck cost rising was discussed c.2006 in the Economist, and there was a 'hidden' economic crisis going on that many who rely on the mainstream to get information was definitely not paying attention to.

This is a blog, but I like the points raised about how our current Ecomonic status is not helping, especially low wage earners who have aspirations to get into a trade or desire a "useful" college degree, but their money status is forcing them to worker harder and basically see no result; add in student loans and the profilgation of scam proprietary schools and we have the mess that we are in right now:

A Dose of Financial Reality - The Simple Dollar

How does this pertain to Nursing?

Google nursing wage suppression and have a great field day with THAT.

Taking the profession as a whole, I personally feel we are quite well compensated. There will always be problematic geographical regions or health care systems, whether the minimum wage goes up or not. Perhaps you are in one of these areas or systems.

I have enough to worry about without adding this to the list of issues potentially keeping me up at night, and when those are dealt with, I suspect this will still be pretty far down the list.

I applaud the efforts to increase the minimum wage. Everyone, and *especially* those doing the physically demanding and/or aesthetically unpleasant jobs (i.e. janitorial) deserves to make enough money that they don't need to worry about being able to put food on the table, afford medical care and prescriptions, pay rent, and have a little something left over to save for a rainy day or treat a child to something special.

Hmmm...if you were interested in facts...not fear, you "might"...just might realize that your interest may be better served taking limbo lessons...it's gonna be hard getting under a bar set so low! At least with such a pitifully low cash flow you'll be able to keep buying the kool aid you seen to like...good luck!

I'll be making a few bucks more than minimum wage. I'm a RN.. The years in school and debt will not be worth it. I'd probably have more money and sanity working at target for $15 with no student loans and less of my paycheck going to taxes. [emoji52]

I think, is the minimum wage is increased, then it will generally cause inflation, otherwise people won't bother getting educated for a better job. If $15 is your entry level, then as people advance, they'll get more.

My son told me that they have this in Australia already. I'm not sure the overall effect, but they have a prosperous country.

If goods and services become more expensive, there is usually less demand so it may increase unemployment and hurt some business.

I'll be making a few bucks more than minimum wage. I'm a RN.. The years in school and debt will not be worth it. I'd probably have more money and sanity working at target for $15 with no student loans and less of my paycheck going to taxes. [emoji52]

Most nurses will have significantly better health insurance through their employers than you would get through Target. Additionally, you would be unlikely to advance to earning much more than minimum wage as a Target cashier (particularly if that minimum wage is $15/hr), whereas in nursing, as you gain experience you become a valuable asset and will earn significantly more. Many employers will pay nurses extra for certain certifications. In nursing you have the opportunity for overtime, night/weekend differentials, etc. Target may offer these to some extent, but they are likely to be way less than what you get as a nurse.

You mention student loans. There are several programs for loan forgiveness if your position meets certain criteria. There are programs for government, public health, nonprofit, certain regional areas, etc. My remaining balance on my loans will be paid off in about 2 years, at which point I will have made 10 years of minimum monthly payments.

Finally, and not at all insignificantly, in nursing you have the chance to make a huge difference in the lives of your patients - perhaps even a lifesaving difference. You are unlikely to have that experience at Target.

For someone whose career plan is to become a DNP, you don't seem to have a very good understanding that economic factors contribute to health inequalities. In order to promote good health, you need to promote equal access to the social economic factors that contribute to it.

$15 Minimum Wage increases are expected to hit our nation, coast to coast, in the near future

You drinking the Bernie Sanders Kool Aid.

Don't see that ever happening

$15 wage law has little impact on Seattle’s thriving labor market, report suggests | The Seattle Times

Seattle is one of the testbeds for the $ 15 minimum wage theory, and it is being closely followed. Given the current state of the economy in Seattle however, it is hard to separate out the effects of the wage law from other factors.

California's minimum wage is already $10 and I still make more than five times that despite starting in a new role at a entry-level wage. You're suggesting increasing it to $15 is going to dramatically devalue my experience and increase my cost-of-living?

Large Minimum Wage (MW) increases tends to:

1. Offer some short term gains for MW workers offset by higher unemployment

2. Have little to no effect on the upper 1%

3. Screw everyone else in the long term through inflation

Allow me to explain:

1. Some MW workers will gain greatly from an increase in MW for obvious reasons, but it isn't so simple because some will lose their jobs due to automation (a machine that was too expensive vs $8/hr labor might be quite affordable vs $15/hr labor) or use of the labor black market (people working off the books). Others MW workers who are on many social programs with income caps will actually cut their labor hours so as not to lose those handouts. It is a hard and fast rule that increased MW = increased unemployment. Eventually the resulting inflation erases the standard of living gains from increasing MW (and unemployment falls).

2. Those at the top adjust where needed and feel little impact.

WHAT ABOUT RNS? HERE IS THE ANSWER:

3. Short answer: For everyone else, including RNs, your standard of living falls relatively quickly and recovers very slowly if ever.

Long answer: INFLATION is the reason. The basic necessities rise in price when the amount of minimum amount of labor most anyone needs to purchase them seems to fall, but there are fixed amount of those goods, prices rise. Or prices simply rise because the guy making a sandwich had their salary doubled. Well the price of your sandwich went up. Simple economics 101. So now you have rising dollar costs for basic goods and services that trickles to all other goods and services.

But did the RN's wages go up?

Can a RN can go to management and say "we need our wages increased 100% too!"? NO! You will get laughed at. They won't have to do that. They don't need to. There may be some small increases down the road as standard of living falls drastically enough for their to be major pressure, but it won't be enough to catch up with inflation.

Eventually, you run into labor pool problems where people go "wait, why should I spend huge $$$ and 4 years of my time on a BSN so I can start as a new nurse at $23/hr when I can keep working for $15/hr at a low responsibility job without college debt?" Then you see labor shortages and wages rise (or standards fall). But that correction is a nice thing for economists to think about, and a crappy experience if you are in that labor pool! And if there is another MW hike, it delays that recovery!

Lastly, it is worth noting that large MW hikes are hardest on the lower middle class and middle class in small cities, suburban and rural areas. The big big cities have market driven effective MW well above the current legal MW already.

Massive minimum wage hikes are a feel-good populist measure pushed mostly by those who are ignorant of economics... and the few that do know the above but do not care because of a sociopolitical agenda. Massive MW hikes are BAD economic policy.