What are you worth in pay?

Nurses General Nursing

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What amount of pay do you think would be fair and reasonable for a nurse today?

You've got to be kidding with this 50,000.00 a year crap!! Are you people lab rats?!?! Working fulltime at pizza hut in nursing school in Birmingham, AL, 1993 I made $35,000.00.Nurses at minumum right out of school should be getting $65,000.00 per year, and 75,000.00 for a couple of years experience, minimum! We are'nt pumpin' gas folks. We have a physically dangerous, emotionally sapping, High tech job. But with comments like I've heard from these Naive Nancy Nursing types, maybe you should be getting paid the lame rates you are settling for! Or maybe you think the UPS driver or your local garbage man does deserve more money than you do because they obviously have a job much more important to the functioning and well being of Humanity. Do me a favor... leave this profession if you think getting paid 40-50 per hour is too much to give a nurse taking care of your mother. Think about the kind of people this profession would attract if it were paying well. Guaranteed more educated, more well rounded, more motivated, more team oriented, better working types. And more MALES who are typically more team oriented and less petty by nature. Think about it... would you rather have a well paid, motivated and satisfied nurse taking care of your family who makes 75,000,00 per year or the young dumb beautiful newgrad who thinks her $13.50-18.00 per hour wage "could maybe be a little better[blushing]." Grow up or get out. This Profession is weakened by you. Florence Nightengale is spitting on your future buriel pit. You couldn't afford to be buried in a real cemetary.

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Originally posted by Nurse X:

Nurses at minumum right out of school should be getting $65,000.00 per year, and 75,000.00 for a couple of years experience, minimum! We are'nt pumpin' gas folks. We have a physically dangerous, emotionally sapping, High tech job.

I agree that the job is hard, but with a minimum entry level as a 2 year program I can't justify asking for more than an MD.

But with comments like I've heard from these Naive Nancy Nursing types, maybe you should be getting paid the lame rates you are settling for!

I am trying not to get offended by this...

Do me a favor... leave this profession if you think getting paid 40-50 per hour is too much to give a nurse taking care of your mother.

I don't necessarily think it is too much, I think for me and others in my area it is completely unrealistic. I would also like to get a BMW and a driver, but I don't see that happening either.

Think about the kind of people this profession would attract if it were paying well.

You mean like lawyers and MDs?

And more MALES who are typically more team oriented and less petty by nature.

Whole nother topic here!!!!

Think about it... would you rather have a well paid, motivated and satisfied nurse taking care of your family who makes 75,000,00 per year or the young dumb beautiful newgrad who thinks her $13.50-18.00 per hour wage "could maybe be a little better[blushing]."

I don't need 75K a year to be satisfied or to take care of my financial obligations. I am not a dumb new grad and I don't blush.

Grow up or get out. This Profession is weakened by you.

Won't even pay much attention to this one because you obviously haven't read what I wrote. If you think you could move to Canada where health care is controlled by the gov't, ask for 75K a year (which works out to well over 100K CDN which is what Doctors can make) and not be laughed out of the room you're nuts. I am a realist.

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Originally posted by nurs4kids:

You've got to be kidding with this 50,000.00 a year crap!! Are you people lab rats?!?! Working fulltime at pizza hut in nursing school in Birmingham, AL, 1993 I made $35,000.00.

I seriously doubt you made 35k @ pizza hut, nurseX. If you DID, you were working salary and if you figured in the hours you worked, you probably made about 2-3bucks/hour. If you delivered, after you deduct $10k for the wear and tear on your vehicle, you made $25k. We have to be realistic in what we ask for or we will NEVER get close to what we deserve.

What are you worth? What do you think you are worth to the mother who knows that you have to make life or death decisons for her child? What do you think you are worth to the families who go home at night knowing that the only person who comes between their family member and death is the nurse? Do you think MDs are worth more? The nurse is the safety net for the patient, for the family, for the MD and for the hospital. Please look at your true value and worth and see if what you earn is equivalent. I doubt it.

chas

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Specializes in CV-ICU.

I can not believe that we value our own work so little that nurses don't think they should be paid $60,000-$90,000/year. Did you know that a beginning violinist for the local symphony orchestra gets paid $62,700 base pay here? Or that an inspector for the baggage handlers gets paid $61,000 their first year? These were in the local paper this week. How much does your garbage collector get? In all probability, probably more than the nurses in your local community. :mad: Why shouldn't nurses get paid at least as much as a beginning violinist? Or an engineer? Fergus, you say that MD's and nursing salaries are regulated in your area. What are some of your other local salaries? There are areas where salaries are depressed, even here in the US. I understand that. But when you look around and see that others may have decent salaries and the nurses in your area do not; what message does that send to the public? Think about it. Is life such a meaningless thing in this society that our work of caring for and saving lives should not be compensated fairly? I do not think that $60,000 or $90,000 is an unfair wage in the metro area I live in. It would be different if I lived in a place where the cost of living was lower, but I would like to be able to afford to continue to live here and work in a hospital that is fully staffed with nurses who are happy about the work they are doing and are fairly compensated for their work. :D ;) :D

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Specializes in Pediatric Rehabilitation.

You've got to be kidding with this 50,000.00 a year crap!! Are you people lab rats?!?! Working fulltime at pizza hut in nursing school in Birmingham, AL, 1993 I made $35,000.00.

I seriously doubt you made 35k @ pizza hut, nurseX. If you DID, you were working salary and if you figured in the hours you worked, you probably made about 2-3bucks/hour. If you delivered, after you deduct $10k for the wear and tear on your vehicle, you made $25k. We have to be realistic in what we ask for or we will NEVER get close to what we deserve.

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Specializes in Pediatric Rehabilitation.

When I graduated nursing school in '95, the starting salary here for a RN was $30k. It hasn't grown very much since. So, yes, 50K to START as SusyK said would be nice. Chas, you also have to look at the cost of living for the particular area concerned. Here $50k is a pretty darn good starting salary for a new grad in any field. Soooooo, to answer your question. No, I think I'm worth $100K/year, but I'm sure the guy in housekeeping, who gets to "play" in all the nasty junk we dispose of, thinks he's worth more than $20k/year too! I'm not greedy, I just want enough to be happy. :p

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Originally posted by nurs4kids:

When I graduated nursing school in '95, the starting salary here for a RN was $30k. It hasn't grown very much since. So, yes, 50K to START as SusyK said would be nice. Chas, you also have to look at the cost of living for the particular area concerned. Here $50k is a pretty darn good starting salary for a new grad in any field. Soooooo, to answer your question. No, I think I'm worth $100K/year, but I'm sure the guy in housekeeping, who gets to "play" in all the nasty junk we dispose of, thinks he's worth more than $20k/year too! I'm not greedy, I just want enough to be happy. :p

I couldn't agree more about the cost of living issue.. remember the laws of supply and demand and market elasticity for certain services. For me that is a given. What is not a given is the feeling that earning a real living is somehow "dirty". Wouldnt it be so much better somehow to work to live rather than live to work? Greed really isn't in the equation at all....

regards

chas

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Originally posted by Jenny P:

Why shouldn't nurses get paid at least as much as a beginning violinist? Or an engineer? Fergus, you say that MD's and nursing salaries are regulated in your area. What are some of your other local salaries?

Both salaries are regulated because we are paid by the gov't. I agree that nurses salaries are not good enough. A starting nurse can expect to make about 40K a year (28K US$ or so). The highest paid nurses don't even make 40K US a year. Our hourly wage goes from 21-26$ canadian. Other professions such as library worker (18 an hour) and liquor store cashier (18 an hour) are obviously not as demanding as nursing. Policemen make about 70K (about 5o american) after few years and if nurses made that I would be satisfied for a while. I am not going to fool myself into thinking that we will get a 200% raise. It just isn't going to happen.

ps

The violinist gets paid so much because of supply and demand. How many violinists do you know these days? ;) I think they're even rarer than nurses... :D

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Since I started this thread and I know there are alot more opinions on this I thought I'd revive this topic. Also, I never said what I think I should be paid. $52,000 to $80,0000 a year seems fair to me based on education and what we do! I think if they paid us on this scale we wouldn't have a shortage right now. But hey that's just my opinion. I know I do this for many more reasons than the money and who doesn't but the higher pay would probably deter me from thinking about what else I could be doing for a living.

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With the revolving door we have been experiencing on our unit I feel nurses should be compensated for " sticking with their unit". Except for one other nurse on my floor I am considered the most experienced ( even I have only been here 5 years ). The rest of the staff consists of nurses that have worked less than 2 years on our floor. This adds to your stress level because you end up orienting all the oncoming staff and doing Charge. On my unit it is not unusual to be in Charge, With patients AND an orientee to watch over. Now that's stress and deserves compensation. :confused:

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I think I am worth at LEAST 100,000 a year. Period. I also like the idea mentioned above of quitting and coming back in 6 months to get the hire on bonus, but dont forget wherever one would go you would also get a hire on bonus there......hummmmmmmm

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I realize that some nurses get a little "edgy" when issues of demanding higher pay come up, but I, for one, have no problem saying that I provide a service, which I paid a lot of money to be trained to provide. If you want my service, but want to pay me in lima beans (which is about all I could afford to buy on some RN salaries I've seen posted), I'm sorry, but you will need to find someone else to provide the service for lima beans. Meanwhile, I will go find someone else who needs my service and is willing to pay me in dollars at my asking rate. Who do you think will find who they're looking for first?

This is simple economics: supply and demand.

Over the last 10 yrs, RN salaries have hardly increased at all. The majority of other professions have increased by at least $10K over a 10 yr. period. I think it's time for nurses to catch up. (Heck, how about some back pay for taking so long!)

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