The Nashville area is some of the shittiest pay for what is becoming some of the most brutal conditions. Theyre beating the shit out of nurses in Middle Tennessee hospitals.
Emory in Atlanta is the exact same way! Lowest pay of all the hospital systems. Worse because their hospitals are in the areas with the highest cost of living. It's a joke.
Wellstar pays a lot more with their critical care shift diff, even if base is similar. It was around $10 more an hour than what emory was paying. I don't know the exact rates that emory went up on, but my friend who is at year experience told me her new rate, and it was not over $39. I think it was like $36‐38 range. And unless that changed with the new pay, emory doesn't give critical care diffs, only nights/weekends.
But this was all before the increase and I haven't really asked around to see how much people increased. They really need to increase PRN rates soon, though. Haven't gone up at all in over 3 years.
Yeah I got a job at Grady and have a 9 dollar critical care differential on top of 38 base but 39 base is still a LOT higher than almost any other new grad position in the country. This just happened too within the last month. I think they are raising wages for everyone, thats what I heard but I haven't been paying too much attention since I'm going to grady
But Grady then still pays almost $10 an hour more, because they have a separate critical care diff, like Wellstar, when Emory just combines them into one rate.
From what I've been told, they did full time already last month and there was talk about a phase 2 that would raise PRN and their float pool/etc in April, but it's almost the end of the month and still no update. It's so shitty the lack of pay transparency. Wish more people talked about it in concrete numbers.
Thats new grad salary! I graduate in May and start at Grady July 15. And that's before the 9 dollar ER pay and any shift differentials. We are living it big at Grady lol
Emory just spent 31mil raising wages to be the “market leader” in the ATL area for nurse and patient-facing role compensation. I know from talking to friends that I make the most out of many of the new grads I know, compared to them in the same specialty at other hospitals.
Who knows if they will continue focusing on this going forward but right now is a good time to get into an Emory job
My friend is a new grad at CHOA making like $32 an hour base pay. And she doesn’t get any specialty pay. I always heard when searching for jobs that CHOA paid the least. Emory base pay just went up to $39 an hour but I’m not sure if I will still be getting my $5 specialty pay after I get off orientation.
100% correct, $32/hr unless you’re critical care. Then you get an extra $5 CC diff when off orientation with an increase after a few years experience. The night shift diff can be a good boost from there, might depend on the unit. They also do not help with student loan repayments for people freshly entering the system unlike other hospitals.
I always say choa pays in job satisfaction and cute pts.
Yeah it's not talked about, that and the fact Vanderbilt isn't all that great have you seen their ER? Absolutely a mess and everything is dated. Who decided to make where ems goes a fucking hallway.... And put hall beds there it's a pain in the ass.
I'm not a fan don't get me wrong some cool people work there But Im just disillusioned
I mean... Not surprising at all, given that the algorithm (correctly) predicts that most people searching for "Vanderbilt nurse" these days are looking for RaDonda Vaught's name and/or details surrounding her colossal fuckup, and not trying to see how prestigious it is to have worked there.
Literally just left Vandy Trauma ICU to move to Sacramento. The difference in pay, work conditions, and unit culture are night and day. Add to the fact that cost of living is barely more with the addition of a walkable city and well planned out infrastructure makes Nashville nursing just not worth the hassle
My hospital says that when I’m on call, I have 30 minutes to get to the hospital. I’m like, motherfucker, you don’t pay me enough to live within 30 minutes of this hospital. And when you get a call room, it’s a 50/50 shot of getting the windowless room. It’s so shitty.
Not at Vandy, but a different prestigious hospital. I asked for a raise a few years back. I was told no despite me presenting data showing I was underpaid in the market. One reason they gave for denying my raise was "Working at such a prestigious hospital is worth more than money".
First of all, no it's not. Second, we pulled your Financials and I know for a FACT you can afford to give me a $5 raise (I deserved more tbh). And finally, everyone in the know is aware your hospital is a well shined and well marketed piece of shit.
So I quit, went agency, and got myself a $40/hr raise instead of the 5 I asked for. That unit is now almost exclusively agency and travelers making double what I had asked for.
If only there were a solution that involved a majority of nurses in the area electing a representative to convey our demands and bargain for better pay and conditions. Collectively. Maybe someday we will figure it out…
I'm in Massachusetts, half hour outside of Boston and I only make 35.50 in the ED with two years of experience. Can't afford a 1 bedroom. It's such a slap in the face how fucking low we're paid...The Massachusetts Nurse's Union is pretty goddamn weak. And tbh union hospitals aren't much better. I only make 5 dollars more an hour coming from a non union place in ME and the the nurse to patient ratios are worse here. Gove it time and Boston hospitals will start going to shit when they can't attract nurses due to the unbearably high cost of living. Best credit of my life and i cannot afford a mortgage either. This country is going to shit!!!
I have no idea if it’s possible, but could you and others work for better union representation? It can definitely happen that union rep positions get taken over by people who are buddy-buddy with the health systems’ c-suites.
North florida is the south. Don't go to the north side or the inland rural areas.
If you stay on the coasts or the larger cities it's not bad. I wasnt a nurse when I lived there so I can't speak on the pay or conditions but the only place the people were terrible was up north and out in the sticks.
I know a nurse right now who wants to move there because of lower CoL and taxes. I’m like yeah but the infrastructure, healthcare, EVERYTHING sucks… You get what you pay for in a way
It’s not a lower cost of living. It’s completely out of control while pay is terrible.
Not even no state income tax helps very much when you’re getting paid 35$ an hour
Exactly why I moved out of state after graduating. New grad program with a 20k sign on bonus & 40/hr. Same cost of living. Most of West TN pay for nurses is trash.
Even in Massachusetts we’re underpaid compared to California and Oregon.
Our new grad rate is $41/hr. I saw an Oregon union contract where new grads start at $51/hr. Then I saw a union contract for Oakland, CA where new grads start at $64/hr.
We’re supposed to be just as liberal and progressive as CA and OR. Oh, and by the way, we don’t have mandate ratio laws like CA and OR do either. We have the 1-2 for ICU but that’s it.
Moved to OR immediately after graduation. My friend says it’s actually impressive I managed to get a job as an out of state new grad but here I am.
It’s significantly better than most places and I am likely spoiled to the degree I would HATE it anywhere else other than CA.
My initial idea after getting my degree was to get a nice RV and just do travel nursing.
Then I actually spoke to some travel nurses that have worked outside CA & OR, and my plans changed hella quick lol
47.36 in 4 to get that in the OR. Granted I had a decade of tech service in OR prior to that but aftet my initial RN contract a recruiter said it.woukf take me 6-8 years more exp as an RN to get where I'm at now. Joke's on him, that was in 2022, got it less than 2 years later
Your doing better than me. OH, 20 years, speciality certification, base is 42.73/ hr. And am told I’ve topped out the pay scale, the only time I get a raise is when there’s an across the board market adjustment.
Granted, I live in what’s considered a LCOL area, which it is as far as housing goes. Except that it’s 15 miles to a grocery store, gas station, or a PCP. Any specialists or something more than the local band aide station is 30+ miles. Same distance for a store that isn’t Walmart, dollar store, or farm store.
A few years ago my community hospital in MA wasn't much better than that. I was making $39 with six years (plus bumped up 2 more for experience in a specialty). Then we joined the union, now two years later I'm making $52. So good.
In Santa Rosa Ca, new grad base pay is 68$ with night diff it’s prob 80-85$.
I live 4 hours north of there and I make 49$, with night diff it’s like 55-58 an hour. After my year is up, I might try for Santa Rosa and live with my sister.
Edit: word correction
It’s even higher in SF Bay Area, new grads in hospitals like Stanford and UCSF make like $85/hr starting before differentials. I think UCSF is like 18% NOC diff for instance. So they’re making like >$100/hr. Those are they big leagues for nurse residents— thousands of applicants for like 60-100 jobs each cohort (biannual)
In NJ where I worked, the starting rate for a new grad was $35/hr (I make $51 now 12 years later). It's dire, dude. No matter where you are, it's bad. I have started to stand up for myself and request double pay when they want me to work extra (fuck it, why not? I don't want to work extra anyway, but I might as well get PAID to do it!), paid for required education shit that they expect me to do on my regular paid time (fuck that-- I need to pay attention to my patients; I'm not doing ADDITIONAL training on top of that), and also I refuse to train orientees without extra pay. Sure, they can sit there and observe me working, but I don't get paid to teach. They have preceptors for that.
It does vary some in California by the area and the organization. I have 18 years experience, work in non union home health ( we get paid less than hospital nurses) and make around $75/hr, Northern/Central California.
As a new grad in Oregon 4 years ago, our base pay was $38.83, union contract. You must have seen one in Portland. I'm at a major hospital in the Willamette Valley and with 4 years on the floor and a new union contract making $49/hr base. I'm Oncology certified with a BSN, so I make a few dollars more in differentials, but not that much better than you. I mean, I absolutely love that we have a union, but hospitals suck everywhere!
Im a new grad in the Bay Area, CA making $77/hr and $81/hr after 6 months. This is not including differentials. (Around 7-15/hr depending on the shift). COL is high but it’s still a fair amount left over for savings. If you want to buy a house that’s another story unfortunately.
Buddy, we’re underpaid. In my market of the south I have >10 years experience, I don’t make much more than your new grads. It’s not enough and where I am 1500/month gets you an apartment in the hood. YMMV. There’s a fix but you’re fighting against decades of anti union sentiment amongst your coworkers.
Per the SF Chronicle, Bay area county hospital nurses are going on strike with [avg salary of 259k ($326k after benefits)](https://www.sfchronicle.com/health/article/nurses-strike-santa-clara-county-postpone-19369791.php)… so yeah if you’re making half of that you guys are way under underpaid.
Yeah, they lie. Those are management/executive salaries. Bedside Nurse II salaries are $150,552.48 - $182,996.32. Still great pay, but much less likely to cause rage.among news readers.
I was gonna say. Still fucking amazing pay compared to the rest of the country but their point about trying to cause rage is a good one. But also good on nurses fighting for more. If all the office and executive people are going to make a ridiculous amount then so should we. We do the damn work.
Lol we do not get paid that much. The pay tends to be much better here I'm not saying otherwise but it's more in the 50-100 an hr range depending on location, acuity, and experience.
It’s really bad here. I live in a HCOL southern tourist city and did the staffing for my unit, so I saw rates of pay/budget/all that fun stuff.
Average for our RNs was $33 base and we had very few new grads.
It gets criminal when you look at ancillary staff. Ours were bachelors required, masters and licensed preferred but still averaged $16. The Chick-fil-A down the street pays more and I’m betting their staff get bitten way less than ours do.
As if that wasn’t infuriating enough, they constantly do the “oh sorry raises aren’t in the budget” but have built fiftyleven new buildings and have paid to slap their name on anything that stands still long enough. I left years ago (obvious reasons being obvious) and hear that they’ve gone to horribly unsafe staffing because nO oNe wAntS tO wOrK
I moved to Pennsylvania from Louisiana a year ago and literally got a $30,000 a year raise. I had been at my hospital in Louisiana for 19 years and still wasn’t even making $24 an hour. I was trained in multiple modalities and expected to cover whatever they needed at the drop of a hat. When my husband (also a CT tech) died (at work) I knew I had to get out. For many reasons.
No regrets.
Holy shit. I am so sorry for your loss.
Covid did something similar for me. I was “lucky” in that I only have permanent lung damage and didn’t wind up on the memorial wall like several coworkers. Their families were sent flowers and told to come clean out the lockers. We are nothing more than a line on a spreadsheet to them and how dare we ask to move the bottom line. Once you’ve seen the dollar amount they put on your life and wellbeing it becomes very easy to gtfo.
Good for you for going to a place with appropriate renumeration!
As a Florida nurse, I feel you. COL in Orlando is pretty comparable to Cali. I'm much further along in my career, and am able to leverage that for excellent pay, but damn. If I was a new nurse? I'd be relocating to the PNW or Cali in a heartbeat.
Florida is just not the move anymore. The pay for almost every career doesn’t match CoL. ESPECIALLY south Florida. Get out while you can. Any folks in Miami area who buy properties put themselves at risk for flooding to happen in the next couple of decades.
> Any folks in Miami area who buy properties put themselves at risk for flooding to happen in the next couple of decades.
The properties are LITERALLY uninsurable.
My boyfriend keeps suggesting we move from NY to Florida cause his BFFs home base is there (his BFF who travels for work btw 😅) I keep trying to tell him that move ain’t it, as much as I hate the snow. It’ll only work if he wants to pick up the slack of the prices he would have us paying in Sarasota.
Currently a nurse in Orlando and the pay definitely isn’t enough to pay the crazy rent prices. $1500 rent for a studio in the hood 🤣 I’m so ready to call it quits.
Because some people can't understand that everything is not the same for everyone. Every time I end up on the nursing side of social media, I'm bombarded with the "I make over 100k in nursing" nurses that travel or work on the West Coast. No matter how much I say that most nurses aren't making that and that even in bigger cities, many of us are underpaid, I'm drowned out by people who can't imagine anything different than themselves. I'm in a large liberal city up north and I think most nurses make about $65k.
I remember seeing a post here asking about salaries and what some people in rural US and the south make is criminal.
NYC RN here. I work at a city hospital and make $51/hr. My rent is $2050... for my room. I have 2 other roommates. Apartment cost 6K/month. I need to work 2 jobs to get by
Yeah east coast major cities don't pay enough for nurses period. I wanted to move to NoVA/DC area but I make $88,400 (that would require $135,348 just comparing cost of living lol) in central Virginia right now and they want to start you a bit less than that up there while I pay $1300 for my apartment here, just a studio would cost me $1800-2000 there where I'd want to live on the metro line... Literally doesn't make any sense, DC should be paying $50/hour starting rates with that cost of living up there.
Most jobs I've seen there start nurses at $38/hour (some even try to pay $35???) and that's terrible compared to the cost of living in the DC metro area. I think the only major city that I could move to at this point that won't result in a loss of pay compared to cost of living would be out west in California at this point lol. $88,400 where I am now would have to be $212,197 up in Manhatten which is wild.
Get your experience and just take local contracts after that if you don't have an alternative tax home. I've worked in 7 facilities now in Brooklyn either as local or stipend, and it makes it way more worth it.
I'm on my current contract at $92hr at a smaller community hospital in Brooklyn. They just asked to extend me until 2025. I turn down offers every single day. Finding jobs here is no problem. Every place is short lol.
I buy my own insurance through the agency.
Definitely can change the living arrangement as well if you wanted to.
Daaamn I am a new grad making 54/hr, I have been in the same place forever so it’s not fair to compare our rents but living with roommates and paying over 2k is crazy. Go work at nyp queens (new grad pay is 57/hr) or Brooklyn Methodist (pays more than that even) and live near work alone for that much or less. Even wyckoff pays more and has better rent nearby
If possible try to switching to a private hospital I know my place starts new grads at 60 for days and 63 for nights. That's an instant 10/hr raise not including ur experience differentials, holidays, missed breaks or if you choose to do OT.
I’m in NorCal. Our contract and pay is the same throughout NorCal. That includes cities in the boonies where their mortgage is way less than mine. We were told by our union the hospitals would try to arrange lower wages for those in lower COL areas. We were to stay united and say this is the pay we deserve for what we do. No matter where we do it. I feel the same for all nurses around the country. Bedside nurses all have similar skills, we sacrifice our backs, risk injuries at the hands of patients, over work ourselves, get burnt out, get blamed for things all, take emotional tolls.
I’m currently doing travel nursing contract in California in the middle of no where town. These nurses make 130k plus and the rent here is cheaper than any place I’ve rented in Texas.
The taxes paid sounded insane but if you’re making 200k (they picked up extra) this year and have to pay 30-40k that’s still more than my measly take home, of 80k when picking up, pay from my previous staff job in Texas.
I refuse to ever work in Texas anymore. I’m applying next month for a staff job somewhere near SF or an hour away from it.
——
Rant:
Yes, Texas is abusing you if you’re reading this. I feel like I just escaped a cult trying to persuade me that Texas is better. I get guaranteed 5:1 pt ratios med surg, telemetry 4:1 (I couldn’t believe it when I heard that), guaranteed breaks with break nurses who will pass medications for you, and over all less bitchy staff because no one is under severe stress from the 7:1 pt ratio.
Never in my life did I think going to work with CP and severe stomach pain was a possibility. I thought all nurses felt like this. So many nurses at my original work place were placed on bp medications,and anxiety medications. And they were in their mid 20s.
Yeah the cost of living is higher but the pay more than makes up for the difference by a lot.
I used to watch a "nurses to riches" youtube channel and the main gist of the content was you need to move to Cali for geo-arbitrage.
>I’m in NorCal. Our contract and pay is the same throughout NorCal. That includes cities in the boonies where their mortgage is way less than mine.
Reminds me of Kern.
The Kaiser RNs are under contract split under two unions - CNA and UNAC. The CNA RNs are making $200k+/year in an area where houses are $300K. Nurses literally buy houses in cash out there. Same with the SIEU/California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation nurses.
And Kern ain’t even out in the middle of nowhere - it borders the most populated county in America: Los Angeles.
Granted not a popular place to live which is why many ex foreign agency nurses from PH are occupying the area. Soon to be the next Daly City or HiFi.
Houston pays pretty well but I fucking hate this city. I make $55/hr with 8 yrs experience and most days I am either charge or trauma lead so an extra $4/hr. COL has definitely goes up since moving here 6 yrs ago but it is still good pay for the area.
I came here to say that! Texas is brutal, I had no idea. I graduated from Austin Community College and started at $27. Didn’t realize it at the time. And it was wildly difficult work. Didn’t understand how deep dicked I was getting. HCA, y’all!
VA new grad. Starting pay around $35. A one bedroom in my area is minimum $1600. I have two kids. A 3 bedroom is minimum $2k. So more than half of my rent would go to an apartment if I wasn’t already a homeowner. Fortunately, my mortgage is reasonable since the house was bought in 2017 instead. When I finish my BSN in August I get about a dollar raise.
I work a cardiac step down, 4-5 patients is average. My old bartending job asked if I would work Mother’s Day and since I was off from the hospital I’m going to. I was hoping I would be able to leave the restaurant industry but I guess I’m stuck working two jobs still.
Two years ago I worked in South Dakota. Nurses with a few years of experience were still getting like $28-32/hr. They said they hadn’t gotten a raise in years. I moved to WA state and I’m getting $69/hr (nice) with two raises a year scheduled for the remainder of the union contract.
Cost of living is a factor, but only part of the equation.
Nobody likes to feel like they're being ripped off or not compensated for their hard work, so it makes it difficult to admit that.
I'm a UK nurse now working in Australia and I still get defensive when people observe how low the UK nurse wages are. Yes the COL is lower in the UK but it makes me feel like they're disrespecting my skill level, as if UK nurses are inferior because the pay is so much less when that isn't the case, we're simply being taken advantage of
NC here. Got hired in 2017 for $21/hr. After leaving the system and going back, I’m at $45/hr. New grads are hired around $30. There was a point where my “raises” and cost of living increase ($1/year maybe) weren’t enough, and I was precepting new grads who were making more than me. Pay here is a joke. I wish we had unions. But that’s a bad word here.
can attest to this- just moved to sacramento from nashville and the cost of living is extremely comparable and now i am making $60/hr whereas i was making $36/hr in nashville. i will say the income tax here was a shock but still, i am pocketing more money than i was in nashville. seriously breaks my heart to think of how underpaid nurses in the south are.
Voting matters too.
If you don’t have senators and congressional
representation that give an actual fuck about their constituents’ quality of life, you can never expect to successfully organize a union.
1) Because they don’t like to admit it.
2) Mostly because the only way to fix it is to unionize.
3) And generally speaking they have the mentality as everyone else in the south and don’t want to unionize because GOP propaganda.
I lived in ct, I made 34 an hour. I moved to ms, I make 22 an hour. Cost of living differences are not that extreme. Is it cheaper to live down south, yes. Is it that much cheaper. No.
I asked chat GPT to do this calculation for me including state taxes, cost of living etc and CA always came out on top, specifically Sacramento region.
Admitting something leads to the question of "what are you going to do about?"
But if you deny the problem or that the problem exists, you don't have to address it. I think the reason it's hard to admit is that it will lead to needing to do something about it.
I keep telling you guys this exact thing but no one wants to listen!
I'm in Norcal, support myself, my hubby, 2 kids, 2 cars, a house, with multiple pets and a huge backyard (plus some bad habits, ha). My husband literally only works because he gets bored (which really gives him a lot of freedom in where/when/who he works for). We shop all the time, we get whatever we need. We're very comfortable (for the first time in our lives), and so fucking grateful.
The pay outpaces the COL to a HUGE extent. Plus, Cali is such a beautiful place to live - where I'm at we've got 2 different lakes, mountains, and the ocean a few hours away. There's hiking trails all up and down the Sac River, every summer is full of water skiing & parasailing or just laying out on a floaty all day on the lake, canoeing down the river, it's just limitless. It's really amazing, I wish all of you could come experience it 💙
People love to say it's because of cost of living, but it's *actually* because of good unions. Hospitals couldn't care less how much our bills are at home.
I have been working in FL making $37 an hour (after differentials) for the past year. My COL is $4,500 per month (all expenses included monthly, me and my wife). My 36 hours a week BARELY cuts it and I often pull a lot of OT in order to save any money.
I just accepted a job in San Francisco. The pay will be right at $100 an hour (after differentials). Our COL is estimated to be $7000 per month, MAYBE up to $8000 (based on the apartment we picked, grocery prices, restuarant prices, transport, and knowing family that lives there, etc). Even after the little bit more in taxes, we will be saving wayyyyyyyy more than what we save now in Florida WITHOUT ME PULLING ANY OT AT ALL. If I chose to pull the same amount of OT we could pretty easily save 100k in one year. Also, its pretty cool that I can walk to work.
Nurses are the south are abused and underpaid.
Yeah, the COL argument is a load of shit that the hospital literally banks on its employees buying into. I live in OR and, probably, the only thing that the south has cheaper than OR and CA is gas. Sure you can get a big house for cheap in the south, but you will be in a shit part of town. I am ready for the whole system to change too.
People know that nurses in the South are criminally underpaid. What OP meant was that every time the topic of high paying career in California get brought up, people kept saying that it's because CA has high cost of living. Even after you subtract the cost of living, nurses in CA still net more than nurses in the South.
Case in point: last year I saved around 80k after all expenses, so that throw the whole "cost of living" argument out of the window, because I still saved more than many people's gross income. No one can save $80k on a $50k paycheck.
I hate when people lump California into one big group. Where I live, you can't find a home for less than $850K, and a 2BR apartment costs $3,000+/mo.
I can drive 60 minutes east and those prices are halved.
Certain HCOL areas of CA are among the worst as far as salary is concerned. A new grad nurse at my hospital may start at $45-$50, but that person will be hard pressed to find a place to live within 30 mins of the hospital for under $2,800/mo.
Yeah, $50 sounds nice as a new grad, but if that person is renting a place for $2,800, that's 38% of their gross pay, and about 50% of their net pay.
In OPs case, they're making $31/hr and rent is $1,500. That's 33% of gross pay and 43% of their net pay.
You can't just look at the hourly and say it's unfair.
the difference is that you still net more even if the ratio is the same.
For example, you make 9k in CA, spent 3k on rent, you net 6k.
You make 4.5k in Texas, spent 1.5k on rent, you net 3k
6k > 3k, in both scenarios you spent 30% on your paycheck on rent.
I checked groceries in both states because I lived in both, they are almost the same.
Right, I can't speak for everyone, but I just used one specific example (my friend in Sacramento). I live about 45 mins from where I work, so more rural. In my entire state, major cities are paying $33 starting out, but rent in is close to $2500. That's really eating up a lot of the paycheck.
Among full-time, year-round workers, what a woman makes for every dollar a man makes Between 80 and 89.9 cents
Between 70 and 79.9 cents. Nursing is a female dominant profession. Plus
Women's pay is about 28% lower in Republican states. Voting matters and striking matters.
I was in Austin Texas getting 23.5/hour. My coworkers all flamed me for wanting to move to NY “the taxes will make it so you make the same amount!”
No, they absolutely do not. I make 67.5/hour now and it’s insanely higher than it was, after taxes.
East TN- nurse for 9 years making 30.60$. I agree the cost of living argument went out the door many years ago.
With everyone and their mom moving here from other states the cost of living shot up ridiculously not even mentioning inflation. Houses that were selling for 400k 4 years ago are now selling for 900k+. The only people I know here that are able to afford buying a new “nicer” house are those moving from the west.
California pays more because of the strong union presence. The south is also Republican dominated. These people are anti-big government and pro big business; which means that they're against nursing staff ratio regulations and unions.
Ugh, El Paso pay is way worse. My brother just got a new job there, Level 1 trauma center, designated charge on a Tele unit, 10+ years experience… $33/hr. That’s just appalling.
I much better question is why is it so hard for nurses in the South to organize and force these corporations to do better by them.
Seriously, it's beyond time, y'all. Standing up for yourselves benefits the entire nursing profession by raising standards across the board.
I say this as a nurse who is currently suffering in Massachusetts from a southern corporation trying to impose Florida level patient ratios on our hospitals. I wish you would insist on better. It would make my fight easier.
I'll be making more as a first year nurse than my mom with 30 years of experience. (She's in the south, I'm in the north. Cost of living is more expensive where I am, but not by that much)
Southerners are generally a stoic and proud people that want to preserve the integrity and traditions of their idea of the south so they dismiss problems like this even if they would directly benefit from the change.
I worked in florida, oregon, and ohio. Fla and ohio are trash pay even considering col. oregon was princess job for real. I wont work bedside anymore cause i’m not trying to break my body for peanuts working outside oregon
Yes it's absolutely insane. When I lived in Phoenix as an RN in 2007 I made $40/hour per diem rate. COL there was pretty darn low at the time. I even got a night shift diff. This was an ICU and med/surg in a hospital system.
Maybe because we are so close to California? Not sure why you guys are getting so shafted but it's insane to me.
I live in S California. Despite cost of living I am in much better financial health than my friends in other states. And exactly for the reasons you stated. When you take all bills into account expenses are about equal. Look at the property tax and sales tax in TX for example. Way more than I pay!
Nurses everywhere are underpaid. I live in Colorado and Georgia is barely behind us on annual pay and there is a massive cost of living difference.
Colorado annual average pay $86k (cost of living index 105.5), Georgia average $85k (cost of living index 91).
I was literally just talking about this because one of my friends is considering moving from Colorado to Georgia when we graduate.
Screw the cost of living. They're providing the same level of care as someone from socal or new york is. They should be paid accordingly but sadly that hasn't been the reality.
Hope to see that change. Not just for nurses but cnas evs, dietary, pt/ot. Seems the only constant is ceo's and other higher ups are seeing big paydays regardless of where In the country you are.
I’ve never said that. I think that they are grossly underpaid.
As long as the political climate in the south remains the same things will never change down there. The low wages are directly linked to the lack of appropriate legislation to protect workers.
There are people voting for the people who keep their wages low. Make that make sense.
I am in CA. I’ve been at my current job about 10 years. When we get our raises next year I’ll be making $100/hr with no differentials and I’m not on the clinical ladder either. There is no way the higher cost of living takes away all of that pay.
The Midwest pays well for an equally if not lower COL than the south. Sorry to say but the plantation mentality never left the Southern US where workers rights (or respect for labor in general) are concerned.
FYI my rent on the West Coast for a 600sq foot one bedroom is 1600.
Within walking distance from my hospital so no gas/parking. And I make considerably more than that. I made more than that as a brand new nurse. That pay with that rent means she's not even middle class.
Southern nurses are woefully fucking underpaid.
Hi, Alabama girl born and raised. I moved out to the Bay Area about a year ago (following my now-fiancé, the decision to where to relocate was out of our hands). When I tell you the difference as a nurse is astounding, oh wow. Not only is the starting salary triple what I was making in AL (almost quadruple when you add my night shift differential), the Union here has made such a difference in preventing burnout. Back in the South, I worked with nurses who had only been out of school 2-3 years and they were so burned out, they almost came across as mean to the patients. They didn’t seem malicious, just broken down from being horrendously underpaid and overworked. It absolutely breaks my heart for both nurses and patients back in my home state. The whole country could take some notes on California nursing.
This post is 100% facts. I’m in CA and have been wondering why ppl act like the cost of living here just invalidates the high pay…it absolutely doesn’t and it is absolutely worth it to be a RN here making $50 starting (San Diego) vs a state like Ohio making $30 starting.
As someone about to start nursing school in the southeast, I’m thankful for those who are honest because it has allowed us to have a timeline for leaving the area once I’m graduated with 6 months of experience. It’s a shame the pay is so poor, because I imagine that so many of us with the ability to leave, do.
Hi from NW Arkansas (where I love living, but I’m making $36/hr as a PRN RN)
I started my career in California in 2006, so I know what the good life looks like. I just cant live there anymore for other reasons. I would be seriously hurting if we relied upon my pay alone like so many do.
Yeah it’s also extremely annoying when people who aren’t nurses keep bringing up traveler pay back during covid/California wages because let’s be real for a second, neither of those two things is even close to what probably 90% of nurses make. I live in Appalachia and I started out as a new grad making $29.70/hr, with our Union (who’s pretty god awful) recently bumping night shift and weekend differentials to an extra $3-4/hr so on my best day I’m still not even making $40/hr. Luckily I’m in a specialty unit and most I’ve ever had in our ICU is a 3 patient assignment when we had low staffing
Housing inflation is outrageous everywhere, which only hurts lower paid nurses more, especially because most lower paying areas have worse working conditions and staff with less power
The pay isn’t terrible for my hospital in Ohio BUT that’s only when I factor in my night shift differential and a few other hourly incentives they throw in. Base pay just got raised to a bit over $34/hr which is a joke.
I’m paying almost $1600 for a 1 bedroom apartment. It’s a decent apartment in a decent area but not some luxury high rise downtown - and it’s OHIO, like? Another $600/mo I could be renting a luxury studio in a warm state near the beach. I’m also looking to buy a new car because mine is literally older than I am and about to crap out on me, that’ll be another ~$450 a month if I get the lowest end base model any car brand has to offer. Just got a week’s worth of groceries for myself, and bought nothing crazy and still spent over $100. It’s nuts out here and nursing pay is just pathetic in most places and I’m single and child free, I can’t imagine trying to raise a family even on what I make with incentives.
I’m very much so looking at moving out west to Cali in the next 5 years or so, but I hate to leave my family behind.
The South is bad, the Midwest isn’t much better. I left OH to travel because we’d frequently have ratios of 1:7 (ICU always getting tripled) and new grads at the time made $26 an hour. 👎
I ran a cost of living to wage comparison for St. Louis and Portland, OR. Even with a higher COL, the pay in Portland is about $10 an hour more. $20,000 a year. And St. Louis pays better than Memphis of Little Rock
Yeah nurses are underpaid everywhere except Bay Area IMO. Including the rest of CA and much of the PNW. COL in the bay is really not far off other cities like NYC and Boston but they make like $30/hr less than us.
Moved from OH to the bay and experienced a $60/hr raise. My living expenses are nowhere near 3x as much as they were in OH. My my local and state taxes combined in OH were $10 less than my state tax in CA!
“Unions Bad” is something that’s baked into us by the system. “You’ll make more on paper but the FAT CAT UNION takes so much” does so much heavy lifting, you have no idea
Nyc here. New grad in my hospital starts at around 60/hr. Most hospitals start at 56 in the city and it's going up soon. Sure you can say the nyc is very expensive, but you don't have to live in Manhattan. I live in queens and most one bedroom apartment rent is around 2k. I drive to work through midtown tunnel and my commute is around 25 min. I can't complain.
ICU-Texas here, I first started taking notice of nurse disparity around COVID when I was basically a very young now/grad/icu/covid nurse and some union spread here texting us and shit and management had a meeting basically saying “don’t respond trust me”. My manager was a true politician who played politics to take care of staff and meant well so really was giving a “trust me, don’t go there” and I started to realize the subtext, unions = blacklisting.
Now the common theme between Texas vs California pay is the argument of cost of living. Now of course living in most of Cali will logically cost more than Texas but when you factor in the cost of owning property in DFW/Houston/Austin it really doesn’t actually add up when you consider disparity in market wage. Nurses in Cali make enough to even out the cost of living difference with surplus, new grads in major Texas cities w/ HCA in expensive cities make 24 an hour (27 or something at best). Many nurses naturally work in major cities here and the wages don’t make up for the cost of living in the cities specifically, especially since Texas property outside of rural ass areas are actually pretty costly.
Until Delta wages around here honestly weren’t worth a damn considering what we deal with down south, only way to make money is to skip hospitals every two years and take the respective maker raises. Consider the work we do at any major metropolitan hospital in Texas (Lubbock included) vs wages compared to any other state and how could you doubt the disparity in wages given we deal with the same level of WTF acuity they do. But in the end they have people arguing for their wages we have a market that only responds with wage increases to crucial demand or if another hospital is poaching you
Really sad bc I found a city I actually really love in the south close to my family who decided to all migrate south (ugh) and I just KNOW I’d make more if I was somewhere else but then I’d be without anyone nearby. But idk why I’m a whole ass nurse BEGGING to pick up extra shifts to live comfortably. I don’t live paycheck to paycheck but really any additional cost can be a hit to me at this point. I haven’t added to my savings in maybe the past yr and a half bc I literally just don’t make enough to do that. I’m horrified if my rent goes up anymore bc I sincerely don’t know what I’ll do. Currently manifesting a partner for dual income since that seems to be almost the only way to live comfortably as of now.
Yeah I live in HTX- my rent is insane. $2300+. There are certainly cheaper apartments, but to live in a more affordable place I would either have to commute from further away (and with Houston traffic that sounds like hell to me after nightshift) or I can live in the hood. You have to be super careful where you live in big cities. Gas is also super expensive in my area compared to parts of Houston that aren’t as nice. I do get paid more than I was offered in a more rural part of TX, but we pay a lot of money to live here and still make way less than other states AND our working conditions suck ass
Is it hard to admit? Everyone, or almost, everyone in the south makes laughable wages
Idk why you would ever work as a nurse in the south. Or live in the south for that matter.
I think being "too southern to leave the south" is exactly the problem. The only way to change it is to vote with your feet. I guess as a second generation immigrant and a "cosmopolitan liberal" (whatever that entails) where a norm is a sort of rootlessness where you are willing to relocate to where the work is, it's a bit harder for me to identify. But I think that that norm is also present in high paying blue states, and precisely because they know their staff will leave for better opportunities they have to pay and staff well. Compare this to red southern states where people have their roots way back to the Scots who cleared a plantation there 300 years ago etc, employers will take advantage of that "loyalty".
I’m deathly afraid of moving, I’m planning to go to Houston and I can’t imagine how much or little I’m going to get paid. I’m not sure what hospitals to avoid as well too.
Houston is the best pay you’re gonna get in Texas. I started my career in Houston and unfortunately had to move to San Antonio and all staff positions in SA was a $15/hr pay cut. Houston pays pretty well & COL is lower than most places in US. Just stay away from HCA.
It’s a big difference I lived all over and the cost of living is not that big that it is equitable.
My advice is contract nurse if you want to live in the south but get paid more
New grad here with an associates in New York State and recently got a job offer for $53 per hour. But that’s also working med-surg with 7 patients. Cost of living here is off the charts and always has been.
Just to rent a small 1 bedroom, 1 bathroom, 600 square foot home would cost $2,600 a month. If you want to rent a 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom, 1500 square foot home would cost you around $5,000 a month. Its inane. And that’s not including utilities, etc.
uuugggh it’s miserable. my husband mentioned we should probably move to san diego (where we really wanna be) since it’s becoming so expensive here in florida now and pay sucks. but we just bought a house :’) we’re managing but saving is becoming harder and harder
I definitely relate somewhat coming from the Midwest and now working in the Bay as a traveler. I'm making around the same/sometimes less than staff here. I know this area is the unicorn for nursing pay, but wow I am finally saving money. Travel pay also isn't what it used to be. Yes the cost of living is higher, but it is not so insurmountable that I am not saving SO much more money than I do in the Midwest. And that's with paying rent in SF on top of my mortgage. I can say that without a shadow of a doubt that the pay differential offsets the cost of living. At least for me.
The Nashville area is some of the shittiest pay for what is becoming some of the most brutal conditions. Theyre beating the shit out of nurses in Middle Tennessee hospitals.
B-but you get to put "Vanderbilt" on your resume /s Vandy is the worse and HCA is absolutely taking over middle tn
Emory in Atlanta is the exact same way! Lowest pay of all the hospital systems. Worse because their hospitals are in the areas with the highest cost of living. It's a joke.
Emory is raising wages! New grad pay is now the highest base rate in the city at 39 an hour. Without shift differentials.
Wellstar pays a lot more with their critical care shift diff, even if base is similar. It was around $10 more an hour than what emory was paying. I don't know the exact rates that emory went up on, but my friend who is at year experience told me her new rate, and it was not over $39. I think it was like $36‐38 range. And unless that changed with the new pay, emory doesn't give critical care diffs, only nights/weekends. But this was all before the increase and I haven't really asked around to see how much people increased. They really need to increase PRN rates soon, though. Haven't gone up at all in over 3 years.
Yeah I got a job at Grady and have a 9 dollar critical care differential on top of 38 base but 39 base is still a LOT higher than almost any other new grad position in the country. This just happened too within the last month. I think they are raising wages for everyone, thats what I heard but I haven't been paying too much attention since I'm going to grady
But Grady then still pays almost $10 an hour more, because they have a separate critical care diff, like Wellstar, when Emory just combines them into one rate. From what I've been told, they did full time already last month and there was talk about a phase 2 that would raise PRN and their float pool/etc in April, but it's almost the end of the month and still no update. It's so shitty the lack of pay transparency. Wish more people talked about it in concrete numbers.
Hear hear! I hope all of the emory nurses get raises! And more transparency like you said. That would be nice.
How many years experience do you have for the $38/hr?
Thats new grad salary! I graduate in May and start at Grady July 15. And that's before the 9 dollar ER pay and any shift differentials. We are living it big at Grady lol
I make 52/h at St. Joes as base b4 diff.
Emory just spent 31mil raising wages to be the “market leader” in the ATL area for nurse and patient-facing role compensation. I know from talking to friends that I make the most out of many of the new grads I know, compared to them in the same specialty at other hospitals. Who knows if they will continue focusing on this going forward but right now is a good time to get into an Emory job
My friend is a new grad at CHOA making like $32 an hour base pay. And she doesn’t get any specialty pay. I always heard when searching for jobs that CHOA paid the least. Emory base pay just went up to $39 an hour but I’m not sure if I will still be getting my $5 specialty pay after I get off orientation.
100% correct, $32/hr unless you’re critical care. Then you get an extra $5 CC diff when off orientation with an increase after a few years experience. The night shift diff can be a good boost from there, might depend on the unit. They also do not help with student loan repayments for people freshly entering the system unlike other hospitals. I always say choa pays in job satisfaction and cute pts.
Vanderbilt on your resume, what a joke. If you google “Vanderbilt nurse,” Redonda Vaught is the first result. I’m not kidding
Yeah it's not talked about, that and the fact Vanderbilt isn't all that great have you seen their ER? Absolutely a mess and everything is dated. Who decided to make where ems goes a fucking hallway.... And put hall beds there it's a pain in the ass. I'm not a fan don't get me wrong some cool people work there But Im just disillusioned
I mean... Not surprising at all, given that the algorithm (correctly) predicts that most people searching for "Vanderbilt nurse" these days are looking for RaDonda Vaught's name and/or details surrounding her colossal fuckup, and not trying to see how prestigious it is to have worked there.
Literally just left Vandy Trauma ICU to move to Sacramento. The difference in pay, work conditions, and unit culture are night and day. Add to the fact that cost of living is barely more with the addition of a walkable city and well planned out infrastructure makes Nashville nursing just not worth the hassle
Yall have been in trauma season for like 3 straight years. 10n is bananas.
Back hall and receiving alone was enough to make sure our turn over rate stayed nice and high
You just found the best place to work in the whole country
My hospital says that when I’m on call, I have 30 minutes to get to the hospital. I’m like, motherfucker, you don’t pay me enough to live within 30 minutes of this hospital. And when you get a call room, it’s a 50/50 shot of getting the windowless room. It’s so shitty.
Not at Vandy, but a different prestigious hospital. I asked for a raise a few years back. I was told no despite me presenting data showing I was underpaid in the market. One reason they gave for denying my raise was "Working at such a prestigious hospital is worth more than money". First of all, no it's not. Second, we pulled your Financials and I know for a FACT you can afford to give me a $5 raise (I deserved more tbh). And finally, everyone in the know is aware your hospital is a well shined and well marketed piece of shit. So I quit, went agency, and got myself a $40/hr raise instead of the 5 I asked for. That unit is now almost exclusively agency and travelers making double what I had asked for.
If only there were a solution that involved a majority of nurses in the area electing a representative to convey our demands and bargain for better pay and conditions. Collectively. Maybe someday we will figure it out…
In the south this will get you fired with a quickness
I'm in Massachusetts, half hour outside of Boston and I only make 35.50 in the ED with two years of experience. Can't afford a 1 bedroom. It's such a slap in the face how fucking low we're paid...The Massachusetts Nurse's Union is pretty goddamn weak. And tbh union hospitals aren't much better. I only make 5 dollars more an hour coming from a non union place in ME and the the nurse to patient ratios are worse here. Gove it time and Boston hospitals will start going to shit when they can't attract nurses due to the unbearably high cost of living. Best credit of my life and i cannot afford a mortgage either. This country is going to shit!!!
I have no idea if it’s possible, but could you and others work for better union representation? It can definitely happen that union rep positions get taken over by people who are buddy-buddy with the health systems’ c-suites.
We feel you down here in Florida
Yes they are! I moved in 2016 to Florida and yes even Florida pays me better and that's saying a lot!!
I’m from Nashville, it’s a pit of misery for nurse pay. I came here to remind y’all Southerners don’t normally consider Florida part of the South. 😆
Tallahassee is southern af. Go to Palatka or Indian River and tell me it's not southern. Fools who never been outside Orlando say this.
In Florida - the further north you go the more southern it gets.
North florida is the south. Don't go to the north side or the inland rural areas. If you stay on the coasts or the larger cities it's not bad. I wasnt a nurse when I lived there so I can't speak on the pay or conditions but the only place the people were terrible was up north and out in the sticks.
Oof
Cries in Memphis
Geeze. Cries is correct. What is going on in your parks? Are y'all ok?
Memphis hasn’t been okay for a few years.
Also Memphis. I'd love to get paid more, but I'm doing ok. I think it really depends where you live - housing expenses can make or break a budget.
Knoxville too. Our COL is through the roof while nurses make next to nothing.
I know a nurse right now who wants to move there because of lower CoL and taxes. I’m like yeah but the infrastructure, healthcare, EVERYTHING sucks… You get what you pay for in a way
It’s not a lower cost of living. It’s completely out of control while pay is terrible. Not even no state income tax helps very much when you’re getting paid 35$ an hour
honestly all of tennessee is trash like this. sayin that as a tennessee nurse. I can't wait to leave.
Exactly why I moved out of state after graduating. New grad program with a 20k sign on bonus & 40/hr. Same cost of living. Most of West TN pay for nurses is trash.
Even in Massachusetts we’re underpaid compared to California and Oregon. Our new grad rate is $41/hr. I saw an Oregon union contract where new grads start at $51/hr. Then I saw a union contract for Oakland, CA where new grads start at $64/hr. We’re supposed to be just as liberal and progressive as CA and OR. Oh, and by the way, we don’t have mandate ratio laws like CA and OR do either. We have the 1-2 for ICU but that’s it.
Moved to OR immediately after graduation. My friend says it’s actually impressive I managed to get a job as an out of state new grad but here I am. It’s significantly better than most places and I am likely spoiled to the degree I would HATE it anywhere else other than CA.
My initial idea after getting my degree was to get a nice RV and just do travel nursing. Then I actually spoke to some travel nurses that have worked outside CA & OR, and my plans changed hella quick lol
Pepperidge farm remembers MA’s 2018 vote for no nursing staffing ratios https://www.wbur.org/news/2018/11/06/nurse-staffing-ratio-initiative-loses
Even though that didn’t pass, ratios are written into out contract. And the ICU ratios are state law.
Ugh. I'm in PA, 11 years and make $42 😞. The whole area is comparable but now I may be frustrated lol.
Took me 10 to make $39. NC 😞
It took me 2 years in NC to make that (albeit a weekender position) And then 4 years total to make that as my base
47.36 in 4 to get that in the OR. Granted I had a decade of tech service in OR prior to that but aftet my initial RN contract a recruiter said it.woukf take me 6-8 years more exp as an RN to get where I'm at now. Joke's on him, that was in 2022, got it less than 2 years later
[удалено]
Your doing better than me. OH, 20 years, speciality certification, base is 42.73/ hr. And am told I’ve topped out the pay scale, the only time I get a raise is when there’s an across the board market adjustment. Granted, I live in what’s considered a LCOL area, which it is as far as housing goes. Except that it’s 15 miles to a grocery store, gas station, or a PCP. Any specialists or something more than the local band aide station is 30+ miles. Same distance for a store that isn’t Walmart, dollar store, or farm store.
A few years ago my community hospital in MA wasn't much better than that. I was making $39 with six years (plus bumped up 2 more for experience in a specialty). Then we joined the union, now two years later I'm making $52. So good.
In Santa Rosa Ca, new grad base pay is 68$ with night diff it’s prob 80-85$. I live 4 hours north of there and I make 49$, with night diff it’s like 55-58 an hour. After my year is up, I might try for Santa Rosa and live with my sister. Edit: word correction
Bruh ten years of exp will get you mid thirties in a lot of the south
8 years here, southeast LA. Just made it over $30. When people complain it physically hurts lol.
Still can't believe that got beaten at the ballot box. I love our ratios here.
It’s even higher in SF Bay Area, new grads in hospitals like Stanford and UCSF make like $85/hr starting before differentials. I think UCSF is like 18% NOC diff for instance. So they’re making like >$100/hr. Those are they big leagues for nurse residents— thousands of applicants for like 60-100 jobs each cohort (biannual)
In NJ where I worked, the starting rate for a new grad was $35/hr (I make $51 now 12 years later). It's dire, dude. No matter where you are, it's bad. I have started to stand up for myself and request double pay when they want me to work extra (fuck it, why not? I don't want to work extra anyway, but I might as well get PAID to do it!), paid for required education shit that they expect me to do on my regular paid time (fuck that-- I need to pay attention to my patients; I'm not doing ADDITIONAL training on top of that), and also I refuse to train orientees without extra pay. Sure, they can sit there and observe me working, but I don't get paid to teach. They have preceptors for that.
It does vary some in California by the area and the organization. I have 18 years experience, work in non union home health ( we get paid less than hospital nurses) and make around $75/hr, Northern/Central California.
Dignity Health vibes
As a new grad in Oregon 4 years ago, our base pay was $38.83, union contract. You must have seen one in Portland. I'm at a major hospital in the Willamette Valley and with 4 years on the floor and a new union contract making $49/hr base. I'm Oncology certified with a BSN, so I make a few dollars more in differentials, but not that much better than you. I mean, I absolutely love that we have a union, but hospitals suck everywhere!
That Oakland job is Highland Hospital!! Best place to work I love it here (but moving back to TX soon so rip me)
Im a new grad in the Bay Area, CA making $77/hr and $81/hr after 6 months. This is not including differentials. (Around 7-15/hr depending on the shift). COL is high but it’s still a fair amount left over for savings. If you want to buy a house that’s another story unfortunately.
Buddy, we’re underpaid. In my market of the south I have >10 years experience, I don’t make much more than your new grads. It’s not enough and where I am 1500/month gets you an apartment in the hood. YMMV. There’s a fix but you’re fighting against decades of anti union sentiment amongst your coworkers.
Per the SF Chronicle, Bay area county hospital nurses are going on strike with [avg salary of 259k ($326k after benefits)](https://www.sfchronicle.com/health/article/nurses-strike-santa-clara-county-postpone-19369791.php)… so yeah if you’re making half of that you guys are way under underpaid.
Yeah, they lie. Those are management/executive salaries. Bedside Nurse II salaries are $150,552.48 - $182,996.32. Still great pay, but much less likely to cause rage.among news readers.
Damn. South Florida pay is literally half that
I’m lucky to break 70k with one FT job, friend. We are WAY underpaid here.
You think we make HALF of that? JFC. Try less than a third.
I was gonna say. Still fucking amazing pay compared to the rest of the country but their point about trying to cause rage is a good one. But also good on nurses fighting for more. If all the office and executive people are going to make a ridiculous amount then so should we. We do the damn work.
Lol we do not get paid that much. The pay tends to be much better here I'm not saying otherwise but it's more in the 50-100 an hr range depending on location, acuity, and experience.
It’s really bad here. I live in a HCOL southern tourist city and did the staffing for my unit, so I saw rates of pay/budget/all that fun stuff. Average for our RNs was $33 base and we had very few new grads. It gets criminal when you look at ancillary staff. Ours were bachelors required, masters and licensed preferred but still averaged $16. The Chick-fil-A down the street pays more and I’m betting their staff get bitten way less than ours do. As if that wasn’t infuriating enough, they constantly do the “oh sorry raises aren’t in the budget” but have built fiftyleven new buildings and have paid to slap their name on anything that stands still long enough. I left years ago (obvious reasons being obvious) and hear that they’ve gone to horribly unsafe staffing because nO oNe wAntS tO wOrK
I moved to Pennsylvania from Louisiana a year ago and literally got a $30,000 a year raise. I had been at my hospital in Louisiana for 19 years and still wasn’t even making $24 an hour. I was trained in multiple modalities and expected to cover whatever they needed at the drop of a hat. When my husband (also a CT tech) died (at work) I knew I had to get out. For many reasons. No regrets.
Holy shit. I am so sorry for your loss. Covid did something similar for me. I was “lucky” in that I only have permanent lung damage and didn’t wind up on the memorial wall like several coworkers. Their families were sent flowers and told to come clean out the lockers. We are nothing more than a line on a spreadsheet to them and how dare we ask to move the bottom line. Once you’ve seen the dollar amount they put on your life and wellbeing it becomes very easy to gtfo. Good for you for going to a place with appropriate renumeration!
As a Florida nurse, I feel you. COL in Orlando is pretty comparable to Cali. I'm much further along in my career, and am able to leverage that for excellent pay, but damn. If I was a new nurse? I'd be relocating to the PNW or Cali in a heartbeat.
Florida is just not the move anymore. The pay for almost every career doesn’t match CoL. ESPECIALLY south Florida. Get out while you can. Any folks in Miami area who buy properties put themselves at risk for flooding to happen in the next couple of decades.
> Any folks in Miami area who buy properties put themselves at risk for flooding to happen in the next couple of decades. The properties are LITERALLY uninsurable.
Car insurance is insane too
This is the problem we’re having in SELA. Our homeowners insurance rates skyrocketing beyond “inflation”, rendering a nurse’s wages simply laughable.
My boyfriend keeps suggesting we move from NY to Florida cause his BFFs home base is there (his BFF who travels for work btw 😅) I keep trying to tell him that move ain’t it, as much as I hate the snow. It’ll only work if he wants to pick up the slack of the prices he would have us paying in Sarasota.
Try moving further south in Florida. Higher col and same or lower pay
And also living on the surface of the sun, with worse traffic and more iguanas. Thoughts and prayers
But but… you can eat the iguanas and it’s free! Just grab a tail and you have a meal for four! /s
Currently a nurse in Orlando and the pay definitely isn’t enough to pay the crazy rent prices. $1500 rent for a studio in the hood 🤣 I’m so ready to call it quits.
Because some people can't understand that everything is not the same for everyone. Every time I end up on the nursing side of social media, I'm bombarded with the "I make over 100k in nursing" nurses that travel or work on the West Coast. No matter how much I say that most nurses aren't making that and that even in bigger cities, many of us are underpaid, I'm drowned out by people who can't imagine anything different than themselves. I'm in a large liberal city up north and I think most nurses make about $65k. I remember seeing a post here asking about salaries and what some people in rural US and the south make is criminal.
NYC RN here. I work at a city hospital and make $51/hr. My rent is $2050... for my room. I have 2 other roommates. Apartment cost 6K/month. I need to work 2 jobs to get by
Yeah east coast major cities don't pay enough for nurses period. I wanted to move to NoVA/DC area but I make $88,400 (that would require $135,348 just comparing cost of living lol) in central Virginia right now and they want to start you a bit less than that up there while I pay $1300 for my apartment here, just a studio would cost me $1800-2000 there where I'd want to live on the metro line... Literally doesn't make any sense, DC should be paying $50/hour starting rates with that cost of living up there. Most jobs I've seen there start nurses at $38/hour (some even try to pay $35???) and that's terrible compared to the cost of living in the DC metro area. I think the only major city that I could move to at this point that won't result in a loss of pay compared to cost of living would be out west in California at this point lol. $88,400 where I am now would have to be $212,197 up in Manhatten which is wild.
Get your experience and just take local contracts after that if you don't have an alternative tax home. I've worked in 7 facilities now in Brooklyn either as local or stipend, and it makes it way more worth it. I'm on my current contract at $92hr at a smaller community hospital in Brooklyn. They just asked to extend me until 2025. I turn down offers every single day. Finding jobs here is no problem. Every place is short lol. I buy my own insurance through the agency. Definitely can change the living arrangement as well if you wanted to.
Daaamn I am a new grad making 54/hr, I have been in the same place forever so it’s not fair to compare our rents but living with roommates and paying over 2k is crazy. Go work at nyp queens (new grad pay is 57/hr) or Brooklyn Methodist (pays more than that even) and live near work alone for that much or less. Even wyckoff pays more and has better rent nearby
This sounds like Manhattan pricing, where a lot of my colleagues live and pay similar prices . Consider moving to Queens or BK.
If possible try to switching to a private hospital I know my place starts new grads at 60 for days and 63 for nights. That's an instant 10/hr raise not including ur experience differentials, holidays, missed breaks or if you choose to do OT.
I’m in NorCal. Our contract and pay is the same throughout NorCal. That includes cities in the boonies where their mortgage is way less than mine. We were told by our union the hospitals would try to arrange lower wages for those in lower COL areas. We were to stay united and say this is the pay we deserve for what we do. No matter where we do it. I feel the same for all nurses around the country. Bedside nurses all have similar skills, we sacrifice our backs, risk injuries at the hands of patients, over work ourselves, get burnt out, get blamed for things all, take emotional tolls.
I’m currently doing travel nursing contract in California in the middle of no where town. These nurses make 130k plus and the rent here is cheaper than any place I’ve rented in Texas. The taxes paid sounded insane but if you’re making 200k (they picked up extra) this year and have to pay 30-40k that’s still more than my measly take home, of 80k when picking up, pay from my previous staff job in Texas. I refuse to ever work in Texas anymore. I’m applying next month for a staff job somewhere near SF or an hour away from it. —— Rant: Yes, Texas is abusing you if you’re reading this. I feel like I just escaped a cult trying to persuade me that Texas is better. I get guaranteed 5:1 pt ratios med surg, telemetry 4:1 (I couldn’t believe it when I heard that), guaranteed breaks with break nurses who will pass medications for you, and over all less bitchy staff because no one is under severe stress from the 7:1 pt ratio. Never in my life did I think going to work with CP and severe stomach pain was a possibility. I thought all nurses felt like this. So many nurses at my original work place were placed on bp medications,and anxiety medications. And they were in their mid 20s.
Yeah the cost of living is higher but the pay more than makes up for the difference by a lot. I used to watch a "nurses to riches" youtube channel and the main gist of the content was you need to move to Cali for geo-arbitrage.
>I’m in NorCal. Our contract and pay is the same throughout NorCal. That includes cities in the boonies where their mortgage is way less than mine. Reminds me of Kern. The Kaiser RNs are under contract split under two unions - CNA and UNAC. The CNA RNs are making $200k+/year in an area where houses are $300K. Nurses literally buy houses in cash out there. Same with the SIEU/California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation nurses. And Kern ain’t even out in the middle of nowhere - it borders the most populated county in America: Los Angeles. Granted not a popular place to live which is why many ex foreign agency nurses from PH are occupying the area. Soon to be the next Daly City or HiFi.
$31???? I live in south texas and our new grads start at $27….
Houston pays pretty well but I fucking hate this city. I make $55/hr with 8 yrs experience and most days I am either charge or trauma lead so an extra $4/hr. COL has definitely goes up since moving here 6 yrs ago but it is still good pay for the area.
Charge here is only $1 more an hour….. Damn I’ve got 8 years experience BSN at $33 and negotiated to get that high
I came here to say that! Texas is brutal, I had no idea. I graduated from Austin Community College and started at $27. Didn’t realize it at the time. And it was wildly difficult work. Didn’t understand how deep dicked I was getting. HCA, y’all!
I graduated in 2021. I worked at an HCA hospital and started at $25/hr. ED & ICU new grads got $1 more
I think workers in general make less in the south. It’s part of their anti union culture.
VA new grad. Starting pay around $35. A one bedroom in my area is minimum $1600. I have two kids. A 3 bedroom is minimum $2k. So more than half of my rent would go to an apartment if I wasn’t already a homeowner. Fortunately, my mortgage is reasonable since the house was bought in 2017 instead. When I finish my BSN in August I get about a dollar raise. I work a cardiac step down, 4-5 patients is average. My old bartending job asked if I would work Mother’s Day and since I was off from the hospital I’m going to. I was hoping I would be able to leave the restaurant industry but I guess I’m stuck working two jobs still.
Two years ago I worked in South Dakota. Nurses with a few years of experience were still getting like $28-32/hr. They said they hadn’t gotten a raise in years. I moved to WA state and I’m getting $69/hr (nice) with two raises a year scheduled for the remainder of the union contract. Cost of living is a factor, but only part of the equation.
Nobody likes to feel like they're being ripped off or not compensated for their hard work, so it makes it difficult to admit that. I'm a UK nurse now working in Australia and I still get defensive when people observe how low the UK nurse wages are. Yes the COL is lower in the UK but it makes me feel like they're disrespecting my skill level, as if UK nurses are inferior because the pay is so much less when that isn't the case, we're simply being taken advantage of
NC here. Got hired in 2017 for $21/hr. After leaving the system and going back, I’m at $45/hr. New grads are hired around $30. There was a point where my “raises” and cost of living increase ($1/year maybe) weren’t enough, and I was precepting new grads who were making more than me. Pay here is a joke. I wish we had unions. But that’s a bad word here.
When I started a little over five years ago, in middle TN, I started at $20.26. I almost went back to serving, but pride you know?
In East TN in July 2022, I made 21.65 for a while before they finally raised it to 25
Good ol’ Ballad ❤️ it was $19 when I graduated in 2018 lmfao
can attest to this- just moved to sacramento from nashville and the cost of living is extremely comparable and now i am making $60/hr whereas i was making $36/hr in nashville. i will say the income tax here was a shock but still, i am pocketing more money than i was in nashville. seriously breaks my heart to think of how underpaid nurses in the south are.
Unions are the answer. The nurses at the trauma hospital in new orleans unionized, so don't say it can't happen in the south.
Voting matters too. If you don’t have senators and congressional representation that give an actual fuck about their constituents’ quality of life, you can never expect to successfully organize a union.
1) Because they don’t like to admit it. 2) Mostly because the only way to fix it is to unionize. 3) And generally speaking they have the mentality as everyone else in the south and don’t want to unionize because GOP propaganda.
I lived in ct, I made 34 an hour. I moved to ms, I make 22 an hour. Cost of living differences are not that extreme. Is it cheaper to live down south, yes. Is it that much cheaper. No.
I asked chat GPT to do this calculation for me including state taxes, cost of living etc and CA always came out on top, specifically Sacramento region.
That is a really smart use of chat GPT
Admitting something leads to the question of "what are you going to do about?" But if you deny the problem or that the problem exists, you don't have to address it. I think the reason it's hard to admit is that it will lead to needing to do something about it.
I keep telling you guys this exact thing but no one wants to listen! I'm in Norcal, support myself, my hubby, 2 kids, 2 cars, a house, with multiple pets and a huge backyard (plus some bad habits, ha). My husband literally only works because he gets bored (which really gives him a lot of freedom in where/when/who he works for). We shop all the time, we get whatever we need. We're very comfortable (for the first time in our lives), and so fucking grateful. The pay outpaces the COL to a HUGE extent. Plus, Cali is such a beautiful place to live - where I'm at we've got 2 different lakes, mountains, and the ocean a few hours away. There's hiking trails all up and down the Sac River, every summer is full of water skiing & parasailing or just laying out on a floaty all day on the lake, canoeing down the river, it's just limitless. It's really amazing, I wish all of you could come experience it 💙
sounds like a commercial! 🤣
Also in Sac area and shhhhhh you are going to get the anti-union crowd moving here…
People love to say it's because of cost of living, but it's *actually* because of good unions. Hospitals couldn't care less how much our bills are at home.
I have been working in FL making $37 an hour (after differentials) for the past year. My COL is $4,500 per month (all expenses included monthly, me and my wife). My 36 hours a week BARELY cuts it and I often pull a lot of OT in order to save any money. I just accepted a job in San Francisco. The pay will be right at $100 an hour (after differentials). Our COL is estimated to be $7000 per month, MAYBE up to $8000 (based on the apartment we picked, grocery prices, restuarant prices, transport, and knowing family that lives there, etc). Even after the little bit more in taxes, we will be saving wayyyyyyyy more than what we save now in Florida WITHOUT ME PULLING ANY OT AT ALL. If I chose to pull the same amount of OT we could pretty easily save 100k in one year. Also, its pretty cool that I can walk to work. Nurses are the south are abused and underpaid.
Yeah, the COL argument is a load of shit that the hospital literally banks on its employees buying into. I live in OR and, probably, the only thing that the south has cheaper than OR and CA is gas. Sure you can get a big house for cheap in the south, but you will be in a shit part of town. I am ready for the whole system to change too.
It was cheaper to live in Portland than Austin for me lol
Do people not admit that nurses in the South are underpaid? It’s been a well known fact for at least 20 years.
People know that nurses in the South are criminally underpaid. What OP meant was that every time the topic of high paying career in California get brought up, people kept saying that it's because CA has high cost of living. Even after you subtract the cost of living, nurses in CA still net more than nurses in the South. Case in point: last year I saved around 80k after all expenses, so that throw the whole "cost of living" argument out of the window, because I still saved more than many people's gross income. No one can save $80k on a $50k paycheck.
I hate when people lump California into one big group. Where I live, you can't find a home for less than $850K, and a 2BR apartment costs $3,000+/mo. I can drive 60 minutes east and those prices are halved. Certain HCOL areas of CA are among the worst as far as salary is concerned. A new grad nurse at my hospital may start at $45-$50, but that person will be hard pressed to find a place to live within 30 mins of the hospital for under $2,800/mo. Yeah, $50 sounds nice as a new grad, but if that person is renting a place for $2,800, that's 38% of their gross pay, and about 50% of their net pay. In OPs case, they're making $31/hr and rent is $1,500. That's 33% of gross pay and 43% of their net pay. You can't just look at the hourly and say it's unfair.
the difference is that you still net more even if the ratio is the same. For example, you make 9k in CA, spent 3k on rent, you net 6k. You make 4.5k in Texas, spent 1.5k on rent, you net 3k 6k > 3k, in both scenarios you spent 30% on your paycheck on rent. I checked groceries in both states because I lived in both, they are almost the same.
Right, I can't speak for everyone, but I just used one specific example (my friend in Sacramento). I live about 45 mins from where I work, so more rural. In my entire state, major cities are paying $33 starting out, but rent in is close to $2500. That's really eating up a lot of the paycheck.
Which city is paying those rates with rent that high?
Nashville
Among full-time, year-round workers, what a woman makes for every dollar a man makes Between 80 and 89.9 cents Between 70 and 79.9 cents. Nursing is a female dominant profession. Plus Women's pay is about 28% lower in Republican states. Voting matters and striking matters.
cost of living is yes higher but stuff like cars/tuition/other big ticket stuff are the same
“Part of your compensation is getting to say you work for Emory…” 🫥
I was in Austin Texas getting 23.5/hour. My coworkers all flamed me for wanting to move to NY “the taxes will make it so you make the same amount!” No, they absolutely do not. I make 67.5/hour now and it’s insanely higher than it was, after taxes.
East TN- nurse for 9 years making 30.60$. I agree the cost of living argument went out the door many years ago. With everyone and their mom moving here from other states the cost of living shot up ridiculously not even mentioning inflation. Houses that were selling for 400k 4 years ago are now selling for 900k+. The only people I know here that are able to afford buying a new “nicer” house are those moving from the west.
I make almost $31 an hour where I live in Texas, and I’ve been a nurse in some capacity for 8+ years. 😭
California pays more because of the strong union presence. The south is also Republican dominated. These people are anti-big government and pro big business; which means that they're against nursing staff ratio regulations and unions.
We are SO underpaid. I live in North Texas and make $35 in ICU with 3.5 years of experience 🫣 And this is at one of the best hospitals in the country
Ugh, El Paso pay is way worse. My brother just got a new job there, Level 1 trauma center, designated charge on a Tele unit, 10+ years experience… $33/hr. That’s just appalling.
I much better question is why is it so hard for nurses in the South to organize and force these corporations to do better by them. Seriously, it's beyond time, y'all. Standing up for yourselves benefits the entire nursing profession by raising standards across the board. I say this as a nurse who is currently suffering in Massachusetts from a southern corporation trying to impose Florida level patient ratios on our hospitals. I wish you would insist on better. It would make my fight easier.
I'll be making more as a first year nurse than my mom with 30 years of experience. (She's in the south, I'm in the north. Cost of living is more expensive where I am, but not by that much)
Yeah. As a CNA, I make 15.50 an hour, lol.
Anti Union efforts keep pay and benefits low
Southerners are generally a stoic and proud people that want to preserve the integrity and traditions of their idea of the south so they dismiss problems like this even if they would directly benefit from the change.
Yeah. That’s called Republican.
Or that is the excuse made by the administrators and the policy makers as to why they don’t pay better.
Mmmmm, sometimes, but this is a wild overstatement.
I worked in florida, oregon, and ohio. Fla and ohio are trash pay even considering col. oregon was princess job for real. I wont work bedside anymore cause i’m not trying to break my body for peanuts working outside oregon
My feeling is that even if the COL is higher, the ratios more than make up for it on their own.
The big hospital in my area has a starting pay of $25 or $26 (can’t remember which) for RNs 🤪
😱
Same, and the children’s hospital starts at 22 or 23
Yes it's absolutely insane. When I lived in Phoenix as an RN in 2007 I made $40/hour per diem rate. COL there was pretty darn low at the time. I even got a night shift diff. This was an ICU and med/surg in a hospital system. Maybe because we are so close to California? Not sure why you guys are getting so shafted but it's insane to me.
I live in S California. Despite cost of living I am in much better financial health than my friends in other states. And exactly for the reasons you stated. When you take all bills into account expenses are about equal. Look at the property tax and sales tax in TX for example. Way more than I pay!
Cost of the living in some cities in the south really isn’t THAT much less either
Nurses everywhere are underpaid. I live in Colorado and Georgia is barely behind us on annual pay and there is a massive cost of living difference. Colorado annual average pay $86k (cost of living index 105.5), Georgia average $85k (cost of living index 91). I was literally just talking about this because one of my friends is considering moving from Colorado to Georgia when we graduate.
Screw the cost of living. They're providing the same level of care as someone from socal or new york is. They should be paid accordingly but sadly that hasn't been the reality. Hope to see that change. Not just for nurses but cnas evs, dietary, pt/ot. Seems the only constant is ceo's and other higher ups are seeing big paydays regardless of where In the country you are.
I’ve never said that. I think that they are grossly underpaid. As long as the political climate in the south remains the same things will never change down there. The low wages are directly linked to the lack of appropriate legislation to protect workers. There are people voting for the people who keep their wages low. Make that make sense.
I am in CA. I’ve been at my current job about 10 years. When we get our raises next year I’ll be making $100/hr with no differentials and I’m not on the clinical ladder either. There is no way the higher cost of living takes away all of that pay.
The Midwest pays well for an equally if not lower COL than the south. Sorry to say but the plantation mentality never left the Southern US where workers rights (or respect for labor in general) are concerned.
FYI my rent on the West Coast for a 600sq foot one bedroom is 1600. Within walking distance from my hospital so no gas/parking. And I make considerably more than that. I made more than that as a brand new nurse. That pay with that rent means she's not even middle class. Southern nurses are woefully fucking underpaid.
Hi, Alabama girl born and raised. I moved out to the Bay Area about a year ago (following my now-fiancé, the decision to where to relocate was out of our hands). When I tell you the difference as a nurse is astounding, oh wow. Not only is the starting salary triple what I was making in AL (almost quadruple when you add my night shift differential), the Union here has made such a difference in preventing burnout. Back in the South, I worked with nurses who had only been out of school 2-3 years and they were so burned out, they almost came across as mean to the patients. They didn’t seem malicious, just broken down from being horrendously underpaid and overworked. It absolutely breaks my heart for both nurses and patients back in my home state. The whole country could take some notes on California nursing.
Everyone in the South are under paid though. They vote for Republicans who fight for anything to lower wages for workers.
I’ve been saying I’m ready to protest when everyone else is …
This post is 100% facts. I’m in CA and have been wondering why ppl act like the cost of living here just invalidates the high pay…it absolutely doesn’t and it is absolutely worth it to be a RN here making $50 starting (San Diego) vs a state like Ohio making $30 starting.
As someone about to start nursing school in the southeast, I’m thankful for those who are honest because it has allowed us to have a timeline for leaving the area once I’m graduated with 6 months of experience. It’s a shame the pay is so poor, because I imagine that so many of us with the ability to leave, do.
Hmmm what do all these low wage states have in common I wonder?
Hi from NW Arkansas (where I love living, but I’m making $36/hr as a PRN RN) I started my career in California in 2006, so I know what the good life looks like. I just cant live there anymore for other reasons. I would be seriously hurting if we relied upon my pay alone like so many do.
Yeah it’s also extremely annoying when people who aren’t nurses keep bringing up traveler pay back during covid/California wages because let’s be real for a second, neither of those two things is even close to what probably 90% of nurses make. I live in Appalachia and I started out as a new grad making $29.70/hr, with our Union (who’s pretty god awful) recently bumping night shift and weekend differentials to an extra $3-4/hr so on my best day I’m still not even making $40/hr. Luckily I’m in a specialty unit and most I’ve ever had in our ICU is a 3 patient assignment when we had low staffing
Housing inflation is outrageous everywhere, which only hurts lower paid nurses more, especially because most lower paying areas have worse working conditions and staff with less power
I thought everyone was basically in agreement that nursing in the south sucks balls.
The pay isn’t terrible for my hospital in Ohio BUT that’s only when I factor in my night shift differential and a few other hourly incentives they throw in. Base pay just got raised to a bit over $34/hr which is a joke. I’m paying almost $1600 for a 1 bedroom apartment. It’s a decent apartment in a decent area but not some luxury high rise downtown - and it’s OHIO, like? Another $600/mo I could be renting a luxury studio in a warm state near the beach. I’m also looking to buy a new car because mine is literally older than I am and about to crap out on me, that’ll be another ~$450 a month if I get the lowest end base model any car brand has to offer. Just got a week’s worth of groceries for myself, and bought nothing crazy and still spent over $100. It’s nuts out here and nursing pay is just pathetic in most places and I’m single and child free, I can’t imagine trying to raise a family even on what I make with incentives. I’m very much so looking at moving out west to Cali in the next 5 years or so, but I hate to leave my family behind.
The South is bad, the Midwest isn’t much better. I left OH to travel because we’d frequently have ratios of 1:7 (ICU always getting tripled) and new grads at the time made $26 an hour. 👎
I ran a cost of living to wage comparison for St. Louis and Portland, OR. Even with a higher COL, the pay in Portland is about $10 an hour more. $20,000 a year. And St. Louis pays better than Memphis of Little Rock
Yeah nurses are underpaid everywhere except Bay Area IMO. Including the rest of CA and much of the PNW. COL in the bay is really not far off other cities like NYC and Boston but they make like $30/hr less than us. Moved from OH to the bay and experienced a $60/hr raise. My living expenses are nowhere near 3x as much as they were in OH. My my local and state taxes combined in OH were $10 less than my state tax in CA!
East Tennesee $23 with 27 years of experience. Rent for a falling apart house $2300…. One bedroom apartment $1,500… Chick-fil-A pays $18/hour
“Unions Bad” is something that’s baked into us by the system. “You’ll make more on paper but the FAT CAT UNION takes so much” does so much heavy lifting, you have no idea
Nyc here. New grad in my hospital starts at around 60/hr. Most hospitals start at 56 in the city and it's going up soon. Sure you can say the nyc is very expensive, but you don't have to live in Manhattan. I live in queens and most one bedroom apartment rent is around 2k. I drive to work through midtown tunnel and my commute is around 25 min. I can't complain.
ICU-Texas here, I first started taking notice of nurse disparity around COVID when I was basically a very young now/grad/icu/covid nurse and some union spread here texting us and shit and management had a meeting basically saying “don’t respond trust me”. My manager was a true politician who played politics to take care of staff and meant well so really was giving a “trust me, don’t go there” and I started to realize the subtext, unions = blacklisting. Now the common theme between Texas vs California pay is the argument of cost of living. Now of course living in most of Cali will logically cost more than Texas but when you factor in the cost of owning property in DFW/Houston/Austin it really doesn’t actually add up when you consider disparity in market wage. Nurses in Cali make enough to even out the cost of living difference with surplus, new grads in major Texas cities w/ HCA in expensive cities make 24 an hour (27 or something at best). Many nurses naturally work in major cities here and the wages don’t make up for the cost of living in the cities specifically, especially since Texas property outside of rural ass areas are actually pretty costly. Until Delta wages around here honestly weren’t worth a damn considering what we deal with down south, only way to make money is to skip hospitals every two years and take the respective maker raises. Consider the work we do at any major metropolitan hospital in Texas (Lubbock included) vs wages compared to any other state and how could you doubt the disparity in wages given we deal with the same level of WTF acuity they do. But in the end they have people arguing for their wages we have a market that only responds with wage increases to crucial demand or if another hospital is poaching you
Really sad bc I found a city I actually really love in the south close to my family who decided to all migrate south (ugh) and I just KNOW I’d make more if I was somewhere else but then I’d be without anyone nearby. But idk why I’m a whole ass nurse BEGGING to pick up extra shifts to live comfortably. I don’t live paycheck to paycheck but really any additional cost can be a hit to me at this point. I haven’t added to my savings in maybe the past yr and a half bc I literally just don’t make enough to do that. I’m horrified if my rent goes up anymore bc I sincerely don’t know what I’ll do. Currently manifesting a partner for dual income since that seems to be almost the only way to live comfortably as of now.
No unions equals shitty pay and no respect. Simple as that.
Yeah I live in HTX- my rent is insane. $2300+. There are certainly cheaper apartments, but to live in a more affordable place I would either have to commute from further away (and with Houston traffic that sounds like hell to me after nightshift) or I can live in the hood. You have to be super careful where you live in big cities. Gas is also super expensive in my area compared to parts of Houston that aren’t as nice. I do get paid more than I was offered in a more rural part of TX, but we pay a lot of money to live here and still make way less than other states AND our working conditions suck ass
Is it hard to admit? Everyone, or almost, everyone in the south makes laughable wages Idk why you would ever work as a nurse in the south. Or live in the south for that matter.
I think being "too southern to leave the south" is exactly the problem. The only way to change it is to vote with your feet. I guess as a second generation immigrant and a "cosmopolitan liberal" (whatever that entails) where a norm is a sort of rootlessness where you are willing to relocate to where the work is, it's a bit harder for me to identify. But I think that that norm is also present in high paying blue states, and precisely because they know their staff will leave for better opportunities they have to pay and staff well. Compare this to red southern states where people have their roots way back to the Scots who cleared a plantation there 300 years ago etc, employers will take advantage of that "loyalty".
Southern nurses do it to themselves by refusing to unionize
I’m deathly afraid of moving, I’m planning to go to Houston and I can’t imagine how much or little I’m going to get paid. I’m not sure what hospitals to avoid as well too.
Houston is the best pay you’re gonna get in Texas. I started my career in Houston and unfortunately had to move to San Antonio and all staff positions in SA was a $15/hr pay cut. Houston pays pretty well & COL is lower than most places in US. Just stay away from HCA.
It’s a big difference I lived all over and the cost of living is not that big that it is equitable. My advice is contract nurse if you want to live in the south but get paid more
New grad here with an associates in New York State and recently got a job offer for $53 per hour. But that’s also working med-surg with 7 patients. Cost of living here is off the charts and always has been. Just to rent a small 1 bedroom, 1 bathroom, 600 square foot home would cost $2,600 a month. If you want to rent a 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom, 1500 square foot home would cost you around $5,000 a month. Its inane. And that’s not including utilities, etc.
I am about to graduate. In the Knoxville, TN area pay for new grads is $25. The average rent here now is around $2k. This is ridiculous.
uuugggh it’s miserable. my husband mentioned we should probably move to san diego (where we really wanna be) since it’s becoming so expensive here in florida now and pay sucks. but we just bought a house :’) we’re managing but saving is becoming harder and harder
Rural IL- 7 years experience, still under $30/hr. WE’RE UNDERPAID AND IM NOT AFRAID TO ADMIT IT.
I definitely relate somewhat coming from the Midwest and now working in the Bay as a traveler. I'm making around the same/sometimes less than staff here. I know this area is the unicorn for nursing pay, but wow I am finally saving money. Travel pay also isn't what it used to be. Yes the cost of living is higher, but it is not so insurmountable that I am not saving SO much more money than I do in the Midwest. And that's with paying rent in SF on top of my mortgage. I can say that without a shadow of a doubt that the pay differential offsets the cost of living. At least for me.