I'm a NP who works in the Stockton/Sacramento area. One of my boating buddies is a RN at Kaiser. He has been there 10 years and is a charge nurse on a med/surg floor. I didn't believe it until he showed me but he does make a base of $200k a year. With overtime he clears a little of $350,000. This is due to Kaiser in Northern California being unionized. He lives in Modesto which is a low cost of living area but the contracts for the union are tied in with San Francisco which leads to high hourly wages. At retirement he is guaranteed at least $110k annually for life and lifetime medical benefits with any medical insurer he chooses whether it is Kaiser or not. I read the contract and couldn't believe what I was reading but there it was.
SO as a NP it makes me want to jump to Kaiser but......if I was to start at Kaiser with 10 years of NP experience under my belt I still wouldn't be making as much as my friend.
Disturbing??? Maybe....I'm happy for him. It just lets me know that there really are those rare RNs who make more than NPs....way, way more and more than most primary care MDs working on the floor. It makes you wonder if this model is sustainable.
Specializes in ACNP-BC, Adult Critical Care, Cardiology.
@ProgressiveThinking, except that when I looked at Austin for job postings in a comparable academic medical center, there isn't even openings for Critical Care NP's like myself and there were maybe 3 NP job postings that have no relation whatsoever with my background...umm, no thanks.
Says here that a 324k salary in San Antonio Texas would be required to maintain a 350k standard of living in Stockton, CA. I'm not a mathematician, but I think in this particular case, a 1-2K difference in mortgage/rent is more than offset by the higher salaries that CA offers, especially since the cost of goods isn't too different.
Says here that a 324k salary in San Antonio Texas would be required to maintain a 350k standard of living in Stockton, CA. I'm not a mathematician, but I think in this particular case, a 1-2K difference in mortgage/rent is more than offset by the higher salaries that CA offers, especially since the cost of goods isn't too different.
Check your numbers again, I was surprised so I checked them and I got far different results. A 324k salary in San Antonio would require 415k salary in Stockton to maintain a similar standard of living. That is why people dislike California so much, it is honestly a beautiful and nice place to live. But the cost of living there is not worth it to many people as it's quite expensive to live there. That same 324k in San Antonio would require 537k to maintain that standard of living in San Diego.
Yeah, San Diego is a different animal. I would LOVE to live there, but everybody wants to live there so salaries are low and cost of living is high. You're correct in that I misspoke about the comparison. 350k in Stockton = 273k in San Antonio.
Lets compare numbers apples to apples.
San Antonio:
Average San Antonio Staff RN salary = 60-85k depending on the website you use. Let's say 90k to make it easy while being generous.
Per Paycheck city.com, that gives you a biweekly net pay of 2625 or a monthly net of $5250.
Median home listing price is 243k. Per redfin that leaves you with a mortgage of $1659/month.
This leaves you with $3591 a month after your mortgage payment.
Stockton/Sacramento, CA:
Average RN salary = 100-130k (keep in mind A LOT of nurses in the area are easily pulling 200k+), but ill use 130k to compare apples to apples.
Biweekly take home = $3507 biweekly or $7014 monthly.
The median home listing in Stockton, CA is 316k. Per Redfin, this leaves you with a mortgage of ~1656 a monthy, assuming you put 20% down (property taxes are lower assuming you don't have a mello-roos).
This leaves you with $5358 a month after your mortgage payment with a similar cost of goods.
To the OPs buddy who makes 350k, he takes home 8302 biweekly or 16604 a month
16604 - 1656 = $14948 month. He wins the contest.
Also, in California you have nurse to patient ratios along with better working conditions. As a bedside nurse, I felt like I had safe working conditions and was generally respected since a lot of people in California want to become a nurse because of its high pay. Had I not gone to anesthesia school, and stayed a bedside nurse, I would hands down stay in California.
Nope. My numbers include taxes using the paycheck city website.
Thank you for breaking down the numbers like that, it was easy to understand and really surprised me once broken down as such. Perhaps I should look into that more thoroughly at a later date, but at minimum it gave me something to think about. One thing I do think might bite you would be federal taxes. CA income tax is 1-13% and I assume income over 100k like that would incur taxes near the higher end of that spectrum, same with federal taxes. Especially as Texas does not have a state income tax at all so that may make a difference. Even so, I'm surprised by the breakdown of the numbers. I'm not sure about others, but personally if someone comes at me with an opinion I ignore them. If someone comes at me as you did with a breakdown of the numbers I listen as the opinion would be backed up by data with references even. I like that.
The taxes are retarded in California and continue to go up. Current policies are to keep releasing violent felons out on to the streets. There are parts of Los Angeles and San Francisco that look like third world countries with needles and feces all over the ground. Yes, RN's are paid well here, average making 120-130k without OT....but California has it's share of problems.
Even so I would consider being a travel RN to California with that in mind. Texas has a low cost of living so if I were a travel RN to California I would get the benefits of both states; TX low cost of living with CA high salary. I'll bet many travel RN's do that exact thing for that similar reasons.
I was playing around with that website. It says for LA I would need to make at least $103k (which it sounds like would be no problem) and for SF I would need 130k.
Specializes in ACNP-BC, Adult Critical Care, Cardiology.
The thing about travel nurses is that in NorCal, they are paid less than regular staff which is not typical in other states. They are not part of the union, hence are not subject to cancellation protections. That said, they have a stipend and traveling is a good way to try out the area and get hired if they decide to stay.
Corey Narry, MSN, RN, NP
8 Articles; 4,475 Posts
@ProgressiveThinking, except that when I looked at Austin for job postings in a comparable academic medical center, there isn't even openings for Critical Care NP's like myself and there were maybe 3 NP job postings that have no relation whatsoever with my background...umm, no thanks.