RN SALARY

Many of my jobs in nursing did not offer stacked pay.

An example: I make $40/hour. 

Say for instance I worked on a holiday, which is already double time($80/hour) . It just so happens that it also overtime for me. You would think I would make $120/ hour. But no, it wasn’t allowed at any of the facilities  I worked at. 

So my hospital has a pay sheet with various incentive amounts spelled out (nights, weekends, holidays) and also lists the flat incentive they use to bribe us to pick up shifts.  Currently this is $20 per hour for LPN and $25 for RN, so they'll send out a page "need RN coverage tomorrow, incentive eligible" meaning if I pick up, I'll make $25/hr on top of my base rate.  Sometimes they offer double incentive.

The latest thing they did was an incentive program to get nurses to work more.  The deal is, if you work 4 12's per week instead of 3, they pay you your incentive rate for ALL hours worked in that pay period, and you're obviously in OT ever week, plus night shift, weekend, holiday pay, etc.  The nurses doing this are raking in the bucks, but are also incredibly burnt out.

Ironically, they literally just sent out for double stack tomorrow night and single incentive for tomorrow day, LOL

No matter where you work, you'll start out with an hourly base pay and then make an hourly bonus (called a shift differential or shift diff) on top for working nights, weekends or both. This is almost always the case no matter what is going on with staffing. Usually night diff and weekend diff fall in the $3-6 per hour range each, but I've seen as high as $12-15. At most places if you work a weekend night, you get both the night and the weekend diff.

In addition, if your unit is short-staffed, you might get some kind of an incentive for coming in--maybe it's a lump sum bonus per shift, or maybe it's an extra amount per hour. These incentives are insanely high right now with the crazy turnover and travel nurse rates, but they're not guaranteed to stay. It is also important to note that these incentives don't count toward your regular hours; it's only hours that you work in addition to your regular schedule. Therefore, you're going to make your regular pay for 36 hours per week (or whatever you're contracted to do), and will only make extra incentive pay after you've already surpassed that limit. It can be hard to work extra days when you're already working full time.

The actual rates vary drastically from state to state and hospital. I just left one job earning $31/hr base (benefited) with $4/hr night and $9/hr weekend diff that was offering $18/hr incentive pay for extra shifts. Therefore, if I picked up an extra shift on a weekend night, I would make $62/hr. I moved to a more expensive city and now have a job with a base of $60/hr (non-benefited) with $4/hr for nights, $4/hr for weekends, and $80/hr incentive for picking up extra night weekend shifts, so if I work an extra night weekend I make $148/hr. But like I said, who knows how long that will last...