Nurses pay

Christine..........wake up from this dream of being a nurse. You have an MBA? I know pharmacists who dream of that title and are working furiously toward it. If you want to help, get into health care administration and make working conditions better. Then volunteer at another hospital to quench that "I wanna help fever" you have. Your time and influence will be much appreciated. Good luck if you choose nursing, youll need it! Wishing you the best. :)

I work in Kent, England. Our wages for qualified/registered nurses starts at around £15K and rises to £23k for an experienced nurse. That's basic, we get enhancements for shift work. I work 30 hours a week over four days, covering some weekends. My gross for this year will be about £20K. Thats Ok for supporting a small family as sole provider! I believe we are worth more though!

hey there, Im not an RN, but as an lpn, my first year of working full time, I made 46,000. I should mention that I live in BC, canada. Its funny that here, the RN's complain that american nursing pays more, but as an lpn, I think we have a good pay rate here.

plus---you've got the benefit of being in beautiful chicago!

most nurses in chicago make good money, especially if they work agency (45-50$/hr for specialty areas). Northwestern pays new grads about $20 and other hospitals about $21. the shift diffs are about $2-3 for pms and nights. gottlieb pays $6 diff for nights, which is about $10,000 more than days. don't work agency until you have at least 2 years experience. good luck:cool:

As a new grad, I began at $46,000/yr. day shift M-F; no weekends, only call after 1 year of working. I live in Delaware.

Christine

See Link Below:

https://allnurses.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=56634

-HBS

I just posted the following on another thread, but it also seems appropriate here.

When I last look at salary.com, heavy equipment operators, plumbers, electricians and even paralegals all made more than nurses for our area; but not one of them requires any college. When looking at what nurses make, also look at what others are making.

Simply put, I did not go to the time, trouble and expense of college to be paid less than non-college educated wage. I was at the accountants last week and my husband asked her if she would still be an accountant if she made less than these non-college jobs. She said absolutely not.

My concern and question is not what wage nurses are starting out at, but rather, what are the 15, 18 and 20 year veterans making? In our area, they are starting out new grads higher than ever before - but the veterans have not seen any pay increase. As a 12 years veteran nurses, I was topped out at $18 an hour. Compare that to paralegals in our area who average $25 with just 5-6 years experience. And I won't even get into the fact that paralegals don't work nights, weekends, holidays, risk any license (as they have no license to risk), have to pay for continuing education, put up with management and family, etc., etc.

Maybe $24 an hour for a new grad is good pay, but it is not what you start out with, it is what you end up getting for your additional knowledge and experience 10, 12 or 15 years downs the road. I've said it before and I'll say it again, any nurse with 5 years of experience who is not making at least $30 an hours, probably shouldn't be a nurse; any nurse with 10 years of experience should be making at least $40 an hour; and a nurse with 15 years should be making $50 an hour.

TO put this into even more perspective, I think you can gather that I am in Wyoming - one of the lowest cost of living States. No income tax and the average rent is around $550 a month. If I lived in a State which had a higher cost of living, I would have to add 5-15% to the above estimates. If I was a nurse in California, I would have to probably increase them by 50% .

I guess my point is that you have to take into account many other factors before deciding whether $24 an hour is good or not. There is a very interesting article about nurses and this subject at -

Well put! And then to think we have to wear the colors of our so called "the best health care system in the world". So, low pay and representation of a system out of control is what I have until I decide to make the change.............................best wishes all :)

I agree 100% that most days RN pay isn't commesurate (sp?) with what we do during a typical shift. When I graduated in 2002 I took a $5k sign-on bonus and I make $21/hour base pay. When I accepted the bonus I signed a contract to stay for 2 years. Well, I'm now over a year into it and would love to be able to leave and take a less stressful job (hopefully such a thing exists!) but feel stuck - I'm almost 28 and my husband and I would love to start a family but I wouldn't get pregnant working in this environment, we are chronically understaffed. Often I don't even have 30 seconds to empty my bladder and don't go to lunch until 2:30

I have not graduated yet, but I will in May 2004. I accepted a $10,000 pre-employment loan in exchange for working at this facility for 3 years (paid up front before graduation, received half in January, then other half in May).

Starting pay is $19.50/hr, $1.00 extra for PM, $1.50 for noc, and $3.50/hr extra if you pick up additional shift over 4 hours. I interviewed for their onc/hem floor and was offered the position, 32hrs/wk PM & NOC, I start 10 days after graduation.

They also have a weekenders program, work 36hrs/wk, get paid for 54hrs/wk, not a bad deal!! New grads are not eligible for this until after 6 months.

I did not go into nursing for the money, but it does help when trying to pay off fed loans and debt I have sunk myself into over the last 3 years.

There are many hospitals desperate for nurses, many of the new grads now can expect starting salaries of $20+ per hour, plus perks.

I just think it is so sad that the hospitals put all of their efforts into hiring new nurses instead of focusing in on what they already have and rewarding their experienced nurses. If they would honor their experienced nurses, maybe they would not have such a shortage. Without the veteran nurses out there to help bring up us newbies, where will nursing be in 10, 15, or 20 years from now.

Originally posted by sierranic

From what I have seen, I think RN's get paid less in my state then most of the others. I am not a nurse, hope to be someday!! But I do have a friend that works at the hospital and she stated that they hire RN's at $15.57/hr starting out. I am also told that hospitals have a tendency to pay less then other locations, but searching at some of the local hospitals to work, I think we have 8-10 within 20 miles of me, the most I have seen was in the $16/hr range and the lowest was in the $14/hr range. The sad thing is that I currently have a job that pays more then what some nurses start out at, and my job didn't require a degree..... Go figure....

Many times when people think about how "little" they are getting paid they don't take into account the cost of living for their area. I'm originally from western KY and the pay was about the same as you in Iowa. BUT, I had a huge 2 bedroom apt. for $275 per month. Now that I'm in Dallas, TX I could probably get a job as an Rn (if I were out of school at about $21.00 per hour but you can't hardly find a decent place for less than $500.00 per month. Cost of living is a BIG factor in the pay that we receive much of the time.