Should nursing pay remain modest?

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Long story short I had a discussion with a veteran nurse, who argued me to the sky that nursing pay needs to remain modest to protect the integrity of the profession. She went on and on about how much better nurses/nursing was when the pay wasn't as high and while at the time I disagreed because lets face it we do a lot, I am beginning to have some ambivalence about the matter. As I see more and more people flock to the field solely for financial gain, and even more nurses who have me whispering what the *what* every day... I begin to ponder, was she correct? What do you guys think?

Specializes in Pediatric Critical Care.

Well heck, fast food workers must have more integrity than nurses or just about anybody else then.

No, nurses need to maintain standards of competency and professionalism to maintain the integrity. I expect to be paid for what I do, and not for minimum wage. If minimum wage increases, nursing wages need to increase. If inflation increases, wages need to increase. Taking a pay cut by not increasing wages as minimum wage and inflation increase actually devalues the profession.

The integrity of the nursing profession is maintained by keeping STANDARDS high, not by making wages low.

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Specializes in CEN.

To protect the integrity of the profession, one needs to hire nurses with integrity. Lowering one's pay accomplishes nothing positive. End of story.

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I can see two sides to this: those with burning passion may choose to be chained to the hospital beds for a handful of trinkets, and those who are as equally passionate but in for a good pay as well. I choose the latter.

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Specializes in Addictions, psych, corrections, transfers.

No, back then they didn't have competencies they had to pay for, massive tuition and loans to pay back, and they weren't required to go to school even longer. There is nothing wrong with valuing hard work and education just like any other educated field.

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That's probably one of the dumbest things I've ever heard in my life. :facepalm::banghead:

I second that, and would question... is this "veteran nurse" suffering from dementia or some form of psychosis? Because her logic is pure lunacy.

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No, back then they didn't have competencies they had to pay for, massive tuition and loans to pay back, and they weren't required to go to school even longer. There is nothing wrong with valuing hard work and education just like any other educated field.

Just like the dinosaurs were real, inflation is real... the cost of living, education, etc. Naturally our pay-scale has to grow with the times and our ever-evolving and expanding scope and educational requirements.

I suspect this "veteran nurse" has antiquated views about a lot of other things, too... like say, resistance against reproductive rights or the remarkable contributions made by glass ceiling breakers like Shirley Chisholm. In my experience, people who are so staunch against progress or acknowledging that "times have changed" lean towards a very illogical, conservative, out-of-fashion rationalization of the status quo... or how they feel it ought to be. To people like this, everything was better/idyllic "back in the day"... we don't have to engaged in any sort of rhetoric to know why that's obviously a bad idea. If it were up to this "veteran nurse" I have to wonder would she prefer there were no male nurses? Would she prefer to see us don the white dress and perfectly starched nurse cap forever? Would she prefer our scope be limited to fluffing pillows and being chased around a desk by lecherous doctors? But then again I'm just speculating here:whistling:

What this "veteran nurse" said is contentious because it can be viewed as a gateway statement, offering potential insight into her personal biases and how she might view the world. It's shocking really. I've only ever heard my dementia/geriatric psych patients utter nonsense like this.

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Specializes in Family Nurse Practitioner.
I second that, and would question... is this "veteran nurse" suffering from dementia or some form of psychosis? Because her logic is pure lunacy.

Lol, be careful I have taken more than one verbal spanking here after asserting we should be aware of our mental shelf life and retire while we are still lucid. I believe the general consensus is one is never too old to do anything their little heart desires.

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She's entitled to her opinions but I think it's a ridiculous one. If she wants to work for nothing, I don't care, but she can leave the rest of us our of her massively incorrect assumptions.

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Specializes in Peds/outpatient FP,derm,allergy/private duty.

Longlegged star, I suspect your "veteran nurse" may hail from somewhere far, far away. There are misconceptions there way beyond the ridiculous notion that a sane person would advocate for a smaller paycheck.

I know my experiences may not be shared by fellow veteran nurses, I'll comment on some of her apparent beliefs.

....nursing pay needs to remain modest to protect the integrity of the profession.

This statement is based on the idea that more money equals less integrity. One or the other. I don't think that's a valid argument. Aside from that, pay is calculated by bean-counting entities who never ask the average nurse for their input anyway.

The "remain modest" is puzzling, too. I read that as "low pay", I don't think the veteran nurse will find too much resistance to a request for low pay..

She went on and on about how much better nurses/nursing was when the pay wasn't as high and while at the time I disagreed because lets face it we do a lot

This one is especially weird not only because there is no demonstrated cause and effect relationship there, but the shortage was in full swing, so we saw hospitals dangling all sorts of material goodies to lure us in. Cruises, weekend Las Vegas getaways for two...

Overall, my pay has tracked pretty evenly with inflation and cost-of-living. If you factor in the better health insurance, the automatic cost-of-living raise and the merit raises, nurses have lost ground since then.

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Specializes in NICU, PICU, PACU.

As a veteran nurse of 32 years,we should make a higher wage than we do. Modest by whose means? We are expected to go back to school, keep up competencies, keep up on CEUs, take harder and more complex assignments, take on a load of responsibilities for caring for sicker and sicker people. We protect our patients from poor doctor/resident judgement, do a lot of teaching that takes time and patience. We deserve better pay for all we do. I love what I do, but we certainly don't make what we deserve.

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I love nursing, can't see myself doing anything else, BUT I don't work for free and I don't work for peanuts.

People going into nursing mainly for the money aren't what makes someone a bad nurse. The statement about people going into nursing for money makes me laugh because considering all that we do and now that we are largely required to have a BSN to be in acute care, we really are not paid all that much starting out. We have to maintain our licenses, continuously learn, progress as the field progresses, and can never be off our game because we have human lives in our hands. I believe we deserve a lot more than the going rate currently, from CNA to NP.

There are people however who just aren't cut out for it and schools want their money so no one ever tells them truth when it is usually apparent from day one. But since higher education keeps feeding everyone and their cousin the lie that anyone can be a nurse and woohoo look at all the jobs after graduation then there is no end for the nurse overflow we are currently seeing. People are fooled, its HARD work being a floor nurse, which is also why now everyone and their aunt are going to NP school lol.

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Thank you guys for commenting, nice to see what others think, and for those who say she is crazy or dumb--or whatever else insult I missed, no she is not, she is a pretty awesome nurse and my friend, I presume just fed up with the dealing with nurses who seem to be in it only for the money (they had 1 imposter busted at the hospital last year and 3 fired here in ICU for super careless mistakes in the past 2 months). I showed her the comments some of you guys wrote and she now recants her first statement, and states that nurses at least shouldn't get paid as much or close to veterans right out of school. That statement, I sort of agree with, or a better way to phrase that is maybe veteran nurses should be paid a whole lot more. Personally I think finding an RN/LPN/NP that will competently and compassionately work for shrimp dollars is like witnessing the birth of a unicorn. But hey this is a big world.

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