PaY and working conditions in Kansas / California

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Hi there,

I'm currently working in Australia, and been a nurse for about 10 years. Am thinking of moving to America to work and thought Kansas might be a good foot in the door. Did try to apply for Registration with California, but they want me to do more clinical and educational hours in Obstetrics, which is a bit of a pain... perhaps i could try California again after working in Kansas for a few years.

Could i just ask what's the average pay rate in Kansas for RNs? I'm getting like $34AUD per hour and penalties are 50% on saturdays and public holidays and 75% on sundays.

Btw, what's Kansas like? I've never been to America and people tell me it's nice and peaceful.

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Specializes in LTC, AL, Corrections, Home health.

Overall the vast majority of Kansas is rural, cold sometimes snowy winters, hot humid summers, with the occasional tornado and terrible thunderstorm. I like it, lived here my whole life but the winters make me want to move further south. There are a couple moderate sized cities most notably the Kansas City metro area, to the East boardering Missouri, and Witchita in the South Central. Cost of living is relatively cheap in all of Kansas, though significantly higher in the city. I live in a nice suburb of Kansas City, one of the most expensive to live in, but you can rent a descent apartment under 800 USD. Family homes in the area average about 160,000-300,000+ and have some of the best public schools, good community services, etc. From the relatively new RNs that I know start out pay in hospitals is less than what you were thinking (between 23-28 Australian dollars per hour and going up with experience) One and a half ordinary hourly wage on holidays, an additional 1 to 3 dollars when you work nights and/or weekends. Long term care facilities start out at 25-30 and tend to have less in the way of benefits. You can probably expect two weeks of paid vacation starting out and tuition reinversment if you're lucky. The rest of the state pays much less but it is cheaper to live in. If California is the eventual goal you might want to check out this website a little further regarding their job market, I hear it really sucks right now:down:.

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Overall the vast majority of Kansas is rural, cold sometimes snowy winters, hot humid summers, with the occasional tornado and terrible thunderstorm. I like it, lived here my whole life but the winters make me want to move further south. There are a couple moderate sized cities most notably the Kansas City metro area, to the East boardering Missouri, and Witchita in the South Central. Cost of living is relatively cheap in all of Kansas, though significantly higher in the city. I live in a nice suburb of Kansas City, one of the most expensive to live in, but you can rent a descent apartment under 800 USD. Family homes in the area average about 160,000-300,000+ and have some of the best public schools, good community services, etc. From the relatively new RNs that I know start out pay in hospitals is less than what you were thinking (between 23-28 Australian dollars per hour and going up with experience) One and a half ordinary hourly wage on holidays, an additional 1 to 3 dollars when you work nights and/or weekends. Long term care facilities start out at 25-30 and tend to have less in the way of benefits. You can probably expect two weeks of paid vacation starting out and tuition reinversment if you're lucky. The rest of the state pays much less but it is cheaper to live in. If California is the eventual goal you might want to check out this website a little further regarding their job market, I hear it really sucks right now:down:.

Thanks heathert_kc, you've painted a really good picture of what Kansas is like. The cost of living seems definitely enticing, considering rent in Brisbane is for me $1360 for a 3 bedroom apartment, and homes are from 350 - 500K these days here. I guess even though they say nursing is in great demand everywhere, it's probably just a myth as I feel sometimes the job market in Brisbane is saturated. Without my friend's recommendation, I wouldn't have gotten my current job as well.

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Specializes in LTC, AL, Corrections, Home health.

That is reflective of my rent but it's just me and my husband, small-moderate sized two bedroom apartment, nothing tos impressive. I know some people around here that pay 1000-1200 to rent small houses or townhomes. Wasn't sure of your family size. Your welcome.

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Specializes in Rural Health.

I'm in a small town in NE KS. Pay is $17-$23/hr with varied night shift and weekend diffs. There's not a whole lot of places to rent around here, but what there is runs around $300-$400/month. Those are usually 2 bedroom houses, nothing real nice. I paid less than $80k for my 2100 sq foot house. Most homes here are under $200k.

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I lived in Wichita for 30 years. It's got three large hospitals (Wesley, Via-Christi St. Francis and Via Christi St. Joseph) as well as numerous clinics, nursing homes, and I think a heart hospital. Kansas is very rural and so you see a lot of patients from all over the state. I worked at St Francis for many years. It's nonprofit, Catholic, and while it had its issues I felt priveleged to work there. Patient care was paramount over profits. Now, Wesley is an HCA, for profit and from what I heard, not a great place to work. For while they hugely understaffing while raking in record profits. A couple of patient deaths and multimillion dollar lawsuits turned that around, from what I hear. The pay isn't great. IIRC, I made around 21/hr when I left in 2005, and I was close to the top of the payscale.

Wichita itself isn't that great. It's either too hot, too cold and it's always too windy. There's not much to do, culturally, but it does have a great zoo. Cost of living is fairly low and it's a buyers marker. The Kansas City area is much nicer and probably pays more. Or you can look into western kansas. It's primarily wheat farms if you like that kind of life. Don't know how much they pay, though.

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I have to agree with fungez's post. If you want a peaceful lifestyle then Kansas is a good place to start. California, on the other hand has an ungodly cost of living but as a nurse, generally you can always find a job and they have many foreigners there too. Get your experience in Kansas and then move to California. I worked there for 3 years as a travel RN-psyche. I loved it and miss it terribly. So much to see and do and I made really good money there as well, unlike Kansas, of course unless you work 2 jobs or something........

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