nursing salary caps

[twinner05]

Do nurses tend to hit this ceiling in regards to salary with their bsn after a while ?

[HouTx, BSN, MSN, EdD]

Yes. Salary compression is not a new issue for nursing. I have not seen any information that this is affected by your educational credentials - it is directly related to the direct care role. Nursing salaries have not kept pace with inflation for many, many years. The end result is that staff nurses are actually making less (in terms of real dollar value) than they did a decade ago.

Even more problematic, the 'entry' rate for an employer is frequently more closely aligned with inflation; so new nurses may be hired in at higher hourly wages than their far more experienced incumbent colleagues. This is a form of disrespect that is hard to ignore - a huge source of dissatisfaction and significant contributor to nursing turnover.

[llg, PhD, RN]

Your pay does not go up indefinitely. For each position, there is a pay range -- and where you fall depends on your years of experience, years with that employer, maybe education, etc. The whole range drifts upwards with inflation.

That's the basic situation at almost all US institutions, but each facility has its specific formulas for calculating where your particular salary fits into that range of salaries for your position. A new hire wil minimal experience will be at the bottom of that range, while a person who has worked in that position for many years will usually be in the upper portion of the range. How long it takes you to get from the bottom to the top of the range depends on the specific decisions made by the employer about how fast to move people up in salary. I worked for 1 hospital where most people hit the top of the range in about 6 years because it was a very narrow range.. At my current employer, it takes almost 20 years to hit the top of the pay range because they have wide ranges.

[gambron]

It is for this reason that I joined the military. I worked on a civilian CICU for a few years and only got a $0.25/hour raise in that time period. I realized very quickly I wasn't earning a fair wage and would most likely never earn a fair wage.

[MrChicagoRN, RN]

Every job or profession has a salary range; hence, a ceiling.

In Chicago, I'd say that the highest paid nurses probably make 40-60% more than an entry level nurse. Might take a few decades, but the potential is there.

[PMFB-RN, RN]

Many nurses feel that the best way to maximize their pay is to change employers every 3-5 years. It is humiliating to learn that the just hired new grad is making $0.50 cents an hour less than the nurse with 10 years experience. I have even known of cases where new grads were making MORE than those who had worked there for 5 or 6 years.

After years of playing that game I took a job with an organization with a very clear mobiliety track for RNs.