Rich nurses?

[tiij]

you guys are mostly from the USA?

I just glanced over a thread and it seems you guys are ridculously overpaid?

In Australia.. nursing is by far not a well paid job. Its maybe just average. My step dad who was a traffic controller - held a sign that said "slow" and "stop" on the flipside got paid $10 an hour more than me.. i kid you not.

[TrudyRN]

We are absolutely NOT overpaid. Being responsible for the very lives of others, being subject to lawsuits, bullying from bosses, violence from patients and their visitors, and verbal abuse from coworkers - no amount of money is enough for all that.

[ohmeowzer RN, RN]

We are absolutely NOT overpaid. Being responsible for the very lives of others, being subject to lawsuits, bullying from bosses, violence from patients and their visitors, and verbal abuse from coworkers - no amount of money is enough for all that.

amen .. i couldn't of said it better myself.

[Jo Dirt]

My family is on Medicaid and the my kids are on the free lunch program at school. If I'm ridiculously overpaid I'd hate to see how I'd be living on less.

[VivaLasViejas, ASN, RN]

My family is far from poor, but am I overpaid for being on-call 24/7, getting phone calls at 3 AM about a fever of 100 degrees, being responsible for the work of 20 other staff members, answering questions all day, and literally holding 42 residents' lives in my hands? Not even CLOSE.

'Nuff said.

[Nurse Smiley]

No, I am not overexagerating! I live in an area where a cheap one bedroom apartment is $1,200 to $1,900. per month. The rooms in my building go for $950 per month. That figuire is about 50% of my net pay!

Now, add in a car payment, insurance in a metropolitan city is far more expensive than a suburb, and add in gasoline and maintenance.

How much is left for healthy food, clothing, toletries, renter's insurance, etc.? Oh and Kasia 2; don't forget our self-purchased scrubs! Savings accounts and retirement accounts are difficult for LVNs. The pensions at our facility are minimal.

I am an LVN in a SNF! I live in one of the most expensive cities in the US.

Nurse Smiley

[RNsRWe, ASN, RN]

You will never here that nursing is well paid in australia. and if you do they are a fool. im not poor.. but if i wanted to be payed well, i would have been a tradesman, or stuck with engineering when i finished high school. nursing... simply isn't well paid. i get paid $19 an hour. the exhange rate is like 80 cents to aus$1 and the cost of living in melbourne... well. lets just say i could never buy a house on my income alone. but i am comfortable.

Did you happen to see this post, on this thread, from Djuna, one of your countrymen? Seriously doubting she'd enjoy being thought of as a fool

I work in Australia and earn a pretty reasonable $68K per year. The cost of living in expensive but I certainly have a better standard of living here than I did in New Zealand.

An income is relative to the cost of living in any given country or state.

RNs in Australia are hardly poor by any means.

Seems that there's plenty of room for you to move upward in your career, right there in Australia. For what it's worth, I wouldn't expect that most nurses here in the US can buy a house on their income alone, especially not so early in their careers, such as you are.

**edited to add: I just re-read your original post, and you do not say that you are an RN. You say "nursing", but perhaps that's where the discrepancy comes in? If you are an LPN or the equivalent, you just might see a significant difference between your salary and that of an RN, but that goes for anywhere. Like the post I quoted above, RNs in your country seem to be doing ok by me....but maybe you need to look into becoming an RN instead if money is causing you grief?

[RNsRWe, ASN, RN]

My current employment facility is offering us a 51 cents per hour increase with a 39 cent decrease per hour the second year and worse the third year!

I'm not sure if I'm reading this right. You're being offered a cost of living increase of 51 cents, but they're telling you that the following year, they'll be CUTTING your rate by 39 cents (allowing you to keep only 12 cents of the original increase)??

I've never heard of an employer that gives you a raise, and tells you that it's going to get just about eliminated the following year. I've heard of "you're not going to see another increase for awhile" but not "here's a few cents for a few months, but after that, we're digging it back out again"!!

I must be reading this wrong, or at least I really hope so for your sake!

[Nurse Smiley]

Hi RNsRWe,

No, you are correctly reading my post! I was astounded too! The union negotiator said that it is called "front loading"! The facility will give the nurses a larger increase the first year and a pitance the second and third year! I have another name for it but I cannot type it here!

This is the reason that I decided to share the new financial phenomenon with the all nurses community! I have never head of such a tactic in my life either!

Nurse Smiley

[zenman]

Nurses here in Bangladesh survive on $100 USD a month. In contrast, I barely survived in Hawaii on $6-7,000 a month. It's the cost of living that matters.

[Nurse Smiley]

Thanks Zenman,

We are not doing comfortably well on either!

Nurse Smiley

[montieICURN]

This may sound sick, but I just logged back on to see how badly the OP got dogged. I knew it!!!

[Midwest4me]

I work in Australia and earn a pretty reasonable $68K per year. The cost of living in expensive but I certainly have a better standard of living here than I did in New Zealand.

An income is relative to the cost of living in any given country or state.

RNs in Australia are hardly poor by any means.

I say that 68k is MORE than reasonable. I'm a seasoned LPN and with all the overtime I've done this year will probably gross $51,000(taxes are going to be terrible next year!)....which is outrageously reasonable for me.Ha! Of course we'd be better off if I didn't agree to invest in the toys(bikes, trucks) my husband gets.