Why do hospitals hire travellers?

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There are millions of unemployed nurses, everywhere. And the pay of nurses is plummeting in many places. They could hire some of those milions, even to just have a pool of staff on call. Yet they pay huge $ for the travellers (salary, big housing allowances from the agency, food, etc., plus I'm sure the agency gets a big fat slice of the cash pie). I don't get it. Not in this economy anyway. The 80's, that makes more sense.

You don't have to have a home. But if you are itinerant (without a home), housing and per diems are a taxable benefit, not tax-free. There are advantages to either tax status.
This seems backwards to me, more so if you own your real home and deduct the interest, etc. But welcome to the Americam tax code, eh?
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BTW, while technically correct, the much more common spelling of traveler has only one 'l'.I checked- the Brits use two l's. Thanks.

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To mlbluvr: After reading this thread it seems like you are less on this site to gain information as you are to antagonize us travelers by making silly assumptions. To reasearch something you should go to multiple travel nurse sites and read what us travel nurses go through instead of assuming we are getting rich, and when not working we are sitting around drinking bon bons. It is a hard occupation, and it is sometimes hard being away from home, working hard to pay bills, pay our morgage 1000 miles away, never knowing for sure if our contract might be cancelled tmrw for no reason, or know where our next job will be untill our current one is almost finished. Their is certainly good points of doing it, but no way is it because we are going to be retired by age 50 and go lie on a beach for the rest of our lives.

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By the way, the "stewardess" comment. Pretty sure this was insulting to them as well. If you think they have a cush job think again. pretty much another thankless job that if most people had to do it for two weeks they would run screaming.

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This seems backwards to me, more so if you own your real home and deduct the interest, etc. But welcome to the Americam tax code, eh?

If you are interested in taxes for travelers, head over to TravelTax or PanTravelers for the full scoop.

But briefly, there is a tax theory called duplication of expenses to determine if an expense is a valid business deduction. If the needs of a job requires travel away from home, most of those expenses can either be reimbursed by your employer (reimbursements are never taxable) or deducted on your tax return. If an overnight stay is required, then housing also fits in this category as a duplicated expense (if you are maintaining a home). If you are itinerant, you are at home everywhere you you are, so there is no duplicated expense and either supplied housing or a housing stipend is fully taxable.

If you think about it, it is common sense. Otherwise, every ordinary worker could receive a tax-free housing stipend without ever leaving home. That would be a huge tax loophole, and pretty soon income tax would be irrelevant.

In my personal opinion, interest write-off is a hugely regressive tax benefit for the well-off. I believe we are the only western country to have that in their tax code.

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Why would I want to antagonize you? Where is that coming from? I asked a question, and am getting great information. There seems to be some angry people in this forum. Please tell me where I said you were lazy, overpaid, or anything? But AGAIN, despite your hostility as well, you also gave me new insight- who would ever think your contract could be cancelled, on top of the other risks and stresses? And like I said before, nobody is forcing you to reply to my question. And again, I see I'm not the only one who was curious about this line of work. Eegads. But the result is that my perception is totally unlike what I had thought- the more I hear about travelers, the less appealing it sounds to me. You have to admit though that the publicity about it is geared to appear glamorous.

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If you are interested in taxes for travelers, head over to TravelTax or PanTravelers for the full scoop. But briefly, there is a tax theory called duplication of expenses to determine if an expense is a valid business deduction. If the needs of a job requires travel away from home, most of those expenses can either be reimbursed by your employer (reimbursements are never taxable) or deducted on your tax return. If an overnight stay is required, then housing also fits in this category as a duplicated expense (if you are maintaining a home). If you are itinerant, you are at home everywhere you you are, so there is no duplicated expense and either supplied housing or a housing stipend is fully taxable.If you think about it, it is common sense. Otherwise, every ordinary worker could receive a tax-free housing stipend without ever leaving home. That would be a huge tax loophole, and pretty soon income tax would be irrelevant.In my personal opinion, interest write-off is a hugely regressive tax benefit for the well-off. I believe we are the only western country to have that in their tax code.
Interesting take. I agree that it is regressive- it's welfare for the rich, who bemoan the poor receiving 'welfare'.
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To mlbluvr: After reading this thread it seems like you are less on this site to gain information as you are to antagonize us travelers by making silly assumptions. To reasearch something you should go to multiple travel nurse sites and read what us travel nurses go through instead of assuming we are getting rich, and when not working we are sitting around drinking bon bons. It is a hard occupation, and it is sometimes hard being away from home, working hard to pay bills, pay our morgage 1000 miles away, never knowing for sure if our contract might be cancelled tmrw for no reason, or know where our next job will be untill our current one is almost finished. Their is certainly good points of doing it, but no way is it because we are going to be retired by age 50 and go lie on a beach for the rest of our lives.
Pray tell also, where I even 'remotely' said you were getting rich, or 'remotely' indicated you were paid too much? I said it's expensive, or I thought so, to PAY THE COST for traveling nurses. If anyone gets rich, I'm sure it's the agency owners.
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Pray tell also, where I even 'remotely' said you were getting rich, or 'remotely' indicated you were paid too much? I said it's expensive, or I thought so, to PAY THE COST for traveling nurses. If anyone gets rich, I'm sure it's the agency owners.

"Expensive" = "paid too much".

Nurses of any flavor are expensive, we get paid well above median income. The difference is is that you were specifically aiming your remarks at travelers, even after lengthy explanations of the true cost of travelers.

Agencies go out of business every year, i.e., fail to make a profit. It is like any other business, if well managed and capitalized, it can make a fair profit. Now you are shifting the blame for the cost of doing business from the traveler to the agency. There is no blame to be had here, it is simply business.

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"Expensive" = "paid too much".Nurses of any flavor are expensive, we get paid well above median income. The difference is is that you were specifically aiming your remarks at travelers, even after lengthy explanations of the true cost of travelers.Agencies go out of business every year, i.e., fail to make a profit. It is like any other business, if well managed and capitalized, it can make a fair profit. Now you are shifting the blame for the cost of doing business from the traveler to the agency. There is no blame to be had here, it is simply business.
Expensive= staff pay, agency takes a cut, etc. Sounds expensive, but the curve in here seems to be more like it's a cheaper alternative for the hospitals. Interesting. But like that 400 bed SNF I was in, all agency- there must be more to it than meets the eye, else they'd close real quick. Another thought is that the hospital may have access to unkown tax benefits they can claim for needing travelling staff, or agency staff, versus 'regular' staff?
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This seems backwards to me, more so if you own your real home and deduct the interest, etc. But welcome to the Americam tax code, eh?

There is a common misconception about the tax deductions for mortgage interest and so forth associated with home ownership.

In reality the number of persons taking said interest deduction is actually quite small and only benefits a certain segment of the tax paying public.

As with all deductions the value of the home mortgage interest scheme only kicks in if one has an expensive home with debt *and* income great enough to warrant itemizing deductions. Most homeowners take the standard deduction so the home mortgage interest write off is of no benefit. The thing also does not befront those who have either paid cash for their homes and or otherwise do not have debt.

The reason home mortgage interest deduction cost the US treasury so much in lost revenue is that the value is mainly concentrated in high income households with expensive properties. Since most consumer credit is no longer tax deductible but mortgage interest is there are ways to make that part of the tax code work for you if you are in a certain income bracket.

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"Expensive" = "paid too much".

Nurses of any flavor are expensive, we get paid well above median income. The difference is is that you were specifically aiming your remarks at travelers, even after lengthy explanations of the true cost of travelers.

Agencies go out of business every year, i.e., fail to make a profit. It is like any other business, if well managed and capitalized, it can make a fair profit. Now you are shifting the blame for the cost of doing business from the traveler to the agency. There is no blame to be had here, it is simply business.

In the old genteel days of nurse's registries it was the nurse or assistant that kicked part of her or his pay upstairs. I worked for a few "white glove" agencies as a home nursing assistant back in my day and the arrangement was simple; they got you work and you agreed by contract to pay a certain percentage of your wages as their fee. One such place was something out of the 1950's, with all the billing done manually via typewriter.

As you can imagine such arrangements were open to abuse and some did take advantage. Finally the owner clamped down and refused to send out anyone who was behind in remitting fees. IIRC one day the secretary told me they were owed nearly one year or more average profits in unpaid fees.

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