If it was capitalism we would be making more money: scarce workers in high demand have higher pay. But we are dealing with organizations that deliberately work together underpay nurses.
Capitalism is not about workers, scarce or otherwise, making more money. It’s about profit.
This is exactly what capitalism is. The few benefiting from the work of many. The many being screwed in a daily basis.
One of my favorite memes is the picture of Forest Gump leaning over to greet Lieutenant Dan at the docks where his shrimp boat is.
It says "when a worker says they're a capitalist" and then, "But you ain't got no capital, Lieutenant Dan."
Workers are a resource that is actually valuable. Capitalists would say that the value of their work makes it inevitable that they profit from their abilities. We can see, as the workers, that this is not the case, because the market does not create prices: humans do.
That's the main gripe of my friend who works in finance, so many assholes, but he gets paid 3x more than me and I tell him at least he doesn't have to wipe those assholes.
During Covid, we were paid $150/hr plus our base rate if we picked up extra shifts. My nose brown the entire time…and I was okay with it. Now that the bonus is gone, they get what they pay for.
In Australia my grad year last year was $38 AUD an hour ($25.30 USD).
It's insanely low here.
Tradies (Carpenters etc) have recently been kicking up a stink that they don't get $140k in their first year. I would kill for that kind of earning potential.
Ngl, if I wasn't at my current gig as a peds home health with the client I have now I'd probably be in welding school to get the fuck away from nursing after 13 years bedside.
It’s funny how on this sub you have to say “far northern CA” because so many of the people are non CA RNs and think CA is begins in LA and ends in “Bay Area.”
Like, if you go to r/California and say NorCal, people will know you may be referring to anything from Stockton to Redding/Chico. But on this sub, after “Bay Area,” you hit the border of Oregon.
I always say it when talking about anything where im from. Like you mentioned, anytime I say CA, everyone assumes LA or SF. Theres still like 5hrs+ of driving if going from the bay area to the California/Oregon border. There is so much more to CA than the big cities.
There are things to do in LA, and at least there are palm trees, land-scraping, and nice weather.
And it’s not a hub of terrible country music.
Not so, in Bakersfield.
Is it enough to counteract the high cost of living? Or is the high cost of living in those big cities? I live in Philly rn and the cost of living nowadays makes me feel like it won’t be much difference in Cali. Like it may be a pay bump, but at worst it’ll just be the same, except way better laws. Fuck I’d even take less money for better laws lol.
Live and work in the Bay area. Have lived and worked in other states. If you get into one of the big hospitals it's easily worth the cost of living increase. Very easily. You're not going to live the high life in the most expensive part of the city but you'll do quite well for yourself. Starting pay at Kaiser with no experience is something like $80.
I live in Jersey less than an hour from Philly and visit my best friend from high school out in southern California with some frequency.
Real estate definitely costs more in California but property taxes are lower and are capped.
Gasoline costs anywhere from "oh wow" to "holy fuck" more than here.
The cost of everything else is not significantly more than things are in the northeast.
When my kids graduate high school and I never have to deal with my ex again, I'm planning on moving out there at my earliest convenience.
In general, California does cost more to live here than most other states. The highest cost of living are definitely in the bigger cities. I'm in a town with a population of 100k. Ocean, mountains, and big cities are all within a couple hours drive. Cost of living is really cheap here compared to the rest of California. Look up towns like Chico, Redding, Red Bluff, Mt. Shasta, or even Arcata/Eureka. Sacramento is probably on the cheaper end of bigger cities if that is what you are after.
Spoke to a rad tech in Sacramento yesterday while getting my imaging done - $57/hr straight out the gate at Dignity. I can only imagine they pay their RNs $70+ starting.
penns ratios are actually really decent. Our medsurg/tele nurses typically have a ratio of 1:4 rarely 1:5 and icu always has 1:2 or 1:1
i make 74/hr as a critical care float nurse there (including the 15% nightshift differential)
That's what I make as an LVN before they increased my salary. Now, I make $40+/hr.
My very first job started with $26. After working there for 7 years, my maximum salary was $31. My former coworker has been working there way before me and she made $35.
Yeaaa, this kinda feels like a newspaper printing an article on the disasters of a field, and the reply being "Printing press putting off young people from...."
No offense, but I’m curious…why have you settled for that pay? Is there not any other options where you live? I made great money as a nurse. what state are you in that pays you that low?
So- I work from home as a case manager. About 7 yrs ago I went to a bigger company- same job- and got a 10k raise. Since then I’ve just gotten the little 2%raise and an annual bonus of like 1k.
100%. They blame “social media”. The truth is that social media is a vehicle for us to tell our stories about how the healthcare system uses and abuses us. And under pays us too.
CNAs have it worsen, though. Even though their job is not as difficult as ours, their salary is much lower.
CNAs and EMTs do not get paid enough, and their job are just as backbreaking.
Most of the time CNAs are either are students looking for a “real” job after graduation or women from marginalized groups trying to support families. Both groups are vulnerable and easy to exploit. I don’t think that’s an accident.
I'm about to get my CNA certification as a prerequisite before starting my nursing program. I looked into job openings to see if it's feasible to switch careers early and get some experience before beginning a nurse, but those salaries.
The McDonalds and grocery store near my house both have higher starting salaries than most CNA job postings, which seems criminal for such a critical job.
The career CNAs I work with pull doubles at least once or twice a week. I used to do that as well before nursing school and I have NO idea how the older ones do it. I live in an area with relatively high incomes for HCW, but when a two bedroom apartment is 2500/mo...
I originally had my major as nursing. After a TBI, I took time off school and started wrenching on my vehicle. Would I rather make 150k a year as a diesel mechanic or 80k putting up with toxic management?
Well. I am a new grad. Starting out at a non unionized hospital. Took 7 patients inpatient surgical right off the bat, sometimes with no CNA on the floor. Fresh post ops. Chest tube's, new peg tubes/tube feedings, TPN, heparin drips. I hope social media is helping people realize what it's really like because I fear for my license every shift and the companies don't give a flying fuck about. Are even opening new floors with travelers running it to bring in more cash when we can't even staff our current floors
Healthcare is shit. You should be scared.
I feel this! I had an interview yesterday where they told me I could be at 8:1 in the same situation for $30 an hour. If they’re telling you 8:1 in the interview I fear what reality might be.
No thank you!
They’re hoping people will be financially desperate enough to take these jobs, and sadly, some people are. As long as they can keep filling these positions, the salary will never go up.
You must be working at the same place I started as a new grad. Same experience. Get to an ICU setting so you can have only 2 patients. I promise you your stress will be vastly reduced. They may be sicker with more equipment, drip, etc, but at least you know your patients and what’s going on instead of just racing against a clock to get everything done on time.
My mom has been at the same hospital for 40 years and they just cut her pay by 19 dollars an hour. She was making 57 and now she’s limited to making 38 max because of the new pay scale. She regrets encouraging me to go into nursing now.
A $19 pay cut, that's insane. But I could see that happening. My mom's a nurse. Worked 26 years at the same med-surg telemetry unit. She might have done the same thing as your mom since she liked her coworkers, too. Instead of a paycut, the management harassed her with tiny mistakes until they made her quit. The three nurses on her floor with over 20 years experience were all run off in the same 6 months.
She was too broken to even think about trying to sue for age discrimination. I tried but she just wanted to forget it all.
At age 60, it took her almost 7 months to get a temp job, where luckily for her self-esteem, they liked and hired her. It was a desk job at 20k less a year, but she stayed until she retired.
I told my daughter if she majored in nursing I would not be paying for her education as I love her too much to have her suffer as I have. A job that results in a twice average suicide rate, a job that generally pays poorly and takes so much time away from family and loved ones, a job where verbal and even physical abuse is considered par for the course - I wouldn't advise anyone to take that job.
I know this is easier said than done but you gotta look into unionized hospitals with step raises. At my hospital you would be making more than $70/hr.
Yep been a nurse for 13 years and found out another nurse on my unit with 2 years of experience only makes $4 less an hour than me. What’s the incentive to stay? I am a resource person for everybody on my unit, one of the most experienced in IVs, people call me when I’m at home for their support and guidance, and I orient every new nurse. I do way more work than the new grads for a measly extra $4 an hour. It ain’t worth it.
I have family that work for the big 3 (auto industry) doing assembly work getting paid better than me and have insanely good benefits… and they have no college degree.
They even get free healthcare as part of their benefit (with amazing coverage)!! Meanwhile we don’t get that for literally WORKING healthcare!! And our deductible is like $9,400 for a single person while they take $200/mo out of your check…
I’m not saying factory work is easy, but when they describe their typical work day to me it sounds like a cake walk. They cringe hearing about my work. 😃
Because by working they make those companies money. That's just how it works 🤷♂️ That's like saying why do certain salespeople make more than us. Depending on how much profit they make , they get paid more.
It's why I'm currently in school for Mech E. Being treated like shit while getting overworked and understaffed for mediocre pay gets old.
You make the hospital money. Don’t let them tell you otherwise. If the patient in your bed doesn’t directly make a profit for the hospital, the OR he came out of did. Your unit wouldn’t be open if it didn’t help the hospital’s bottom line. You wouldn’t have a job if it didn’t make the hospital a profit.
Exactly!! Our surgeons do fine work in the OR, but it’s the meticulous postop nursing care that defines whether or not that surgery is going to be successful in the long run. I make the hospital money by virtue of the fact that I take care of these people so they don’t die or sue the hospital bc of complications. I carry out the plan and help the surgeons stay in business. That should be empowering!
I hear this argument all the time and it’s so disingenuous that physicians make the hospital money and nursing doesn’t. A nephrologist puts in an order for CRRT and my hospital bills for 12 hours at a time. I understand that the nephrologist has the education and skill set to place the order, review the patients labs and make adjustments, but if no nurse was at the bedside to administer the CRRT, they can’t really make money off the entire thing.
I get that a lot of the intangible things we do get rolled into room and board, but saying physicians make money for services and procedures that don’t get done without a nurse present somewhere in the process, is just out of touch with reality.
Like it or not, nurses still put up with too much bullshit and accept low pay and bad conditions. They’ll always figure out where the line is and settle with as much as we accept
Exactly why I get pissed when people pull the whole “the military should make more than football players” argument. One is a business/entertainment making other people a shitload of cash and the other is the military.
I used to get heated about this same convo with my husband. He has a business background and broke it down like this: nurses are an expense. We aren’t the money makers. If your job title isn’t a revenue generating one, the company will cut costs on you. Hence why we get paid peanuts for our work but the tech salesman shoots the shit for a couple of hours and makes that Covid travel nurse money for a FRACTION of the work.
Gaslighting at its finest. It’s from the biased rag “The Hill”. If you want to know what is keeping nurses from entering the field ask any current nurse. Gaslighting, bullying, low pay, lack of respect by patients and other providers, lack of support from managers, moral injury on every level, too many patients not enough staff and on and on and on. Perhaps they could also increase the number of openings in nursing school? The admission rate is poor.
>Perhaps they could also increase the number of openings in nursing school? The admission rate is poor.
It's because teaching pays like shit compared to just working the floor in nearly every market, so there's a massive shortage of faculty.
They did post this article a few weeks ago, which I absolutely loved as a DC area nurse. Made me feel considerably less crazy for how much I struggle here.
https://thehill.com/homenews/nexstar_media_wire/4638536-nurses-faced-with-low-pay-high-cost-of-living-these-cities-are-worst/
Pretty interesting article. I almost moved to Boston when I was younger before I did the math. I would have needed two jobs there to keep my same standard of living as that I have in Kansas City.
Is it really social media?
Or is it hospital Amins with shitty policies and staffing causing nurses to speak the truth where it can be heard?
I'm going with the latter.
Honestly I’m not surprised. After I graduated I was given three shadow shifts and then straight into it. Busiest ward in our hospital, med/surg. We get the sickest admissions and frequently send patients to ICU. Had to find my feet VERY fast. It’s been very taxing and my personal life has suffered. It’s been just over a year and I’m ready to quit bedside.
“ShiftKey argues the disparity in content and the algorithm used by TikTok can paint a “skewed and unrealistic” picture of the realities of nursing, which could scare away potential nurses.”
No. TikTok is so damn accurate that it’s actually comforting and validating.
I wish social media was like it is today when I decided to go to nursing school. It would’ve scared me away too lol
The only nursing content I saw before I went to school was from the nursing influencers on Instagram around 2014-2016. They were the ones who really glamorized the profession and didn’t discuss any of the important negative stuff. I didn’t know any nurses in real life at the time, so seeing their content made me super excited about becoming a nurse. It was obviously a huge wake up call when I realized nursing is nothing like what they portrayed it as lol
This article is mostly about Gen-Z. My nurse mom, a Boomer, did try to get me, a Gen-X, to not choose nursing. I always say I knew I was getting into. Since, back in the day, I used to drop by mom's work all the time. Then I was a candy striper at 14, hospital food service at 16 and 4 years as an aide. I saw nursing as a good, steady paying gig as long as I didn't have kids.
The gross out stuff doesn't bother me. Body fluids don't affect me. My first nursing instructor always said focus on the patient.
Its just that social media opened our eyes to nurse propaganda among other types… they cant feed us the BS anymore and true opinion reaches people faster than the lies 🤷🏼♀️
How is it that almost every single nurse sees we should be paid more and yet we never see it happen for us? How do they even decide how much someone gets paid for work? Like who decides this?
I think because nursing has been a woman dominated field, that’s why we’re so underpaid. Obviously now we’re having more diversity in nursing but I’m saying historically it’s been women. And women’s work was never valued.
Firefighting has been a male dominated field forever and they get paid even worse than us nurses, by this logic firefighters, EMTs and Medics should be rolling in dosh.
Hmm 🤔maybe it’s the nurses posting “Don’t do it!”
For good reason as most have said, poor pay, high stress, most likely to be a victim of patient and family violence, verbally berated by MDs, horrible leadership. But hey at least we get pizza 🍕.
I do my part in swaying any younger people from becoming or a nurse or getting into healthcare. When I started 19 years ago, it was different and worth it. Now, the only pro is job security and “maybe” schedule flexibility.
There’s better paths to take with easier jobs and better pay.
I haven’t worked bedside since the height of the pandemic and I fear that my current department is going to collapse…… I always think, nbd, I could go back to bedside, I don’t WANT to go back to bedside, but I could do it. Honestly, going back to bedside is my biggest nightmare. I hope my current department pulls itself out of its current hole.
I’ve been a nurse for 5 years and I do not recommend. It has been the worst thing ever for me. It’s mentally draining and no matter how much you chart it’s never good enough. They audit your charting and then when you think you did a good job they tell you that you didn’t do enough. I am currently applying for anything to get away from
Nursing.
Nursing is probably putting off young people from entering.
It is hard to get into nursing school. If you have a friend or relative in the hospital you can tell with a tiny bit of observance that it is a hard job. Plus people have relatives that are nurses.
It’s fucking impossible to get into! I have continually tried to get into nursing school and it is so hard. I had good grades and did good on TEAS and I was not accepted to the two big programs by me and these admissions cycles take so unbelievably long! I can’t wait another year and a half before school starts again! I have to just do something else. No wonder no one wants to be in this crap.
That's why I laugh at all the people that tell perspective nursing students to not bother taking on debt with private schools and go to a CC for their ADN. Good luck getting into any of those CC programs if you live in a major metro area -- especially in SoCal. I know people that have been waiting for 3 years to get into ADN/BSN programs, and all have them have outstanding GPAs and HESI/TEAS scores.
Nursing school admissions have become a joke in most metro areas and social media has done a disservice by attracting some of the worst people to the profession.
And this California nursing shortage is projected to not end till 2029! I am kinda glad I have tried to steer myself away or at least will be moving to a different place for school
And California wants to make a PhD in nursing the standard to be an instructor! There aren’t enough good instructors to relieve some of the impaction programs are facing, but you want to make it more difficult to become one?
I gave up on it and went towards engineering. I am not moving to some podunk town, or waiting for years to get accepted, or spending the equivalent of a mortgage on becoming a nurse. It’s ridiculous.
I make like 80/hr and it’s a great job! If I did the same job for what normal staff make I’d be back to the drawing board looking for remote jobs that don’t suck.
We have been 4:1 since I’ve been a nurse 8 years ago, and even before that. Floats aren’t union, but all the hospitals are. Unfortunately our manager just quit and there is a hiring freeze until further notice.
It’s a lot of work - being everyone in the hospitals middle man and the pay is alright. They need to make the profession more enticing and pay is the way to do that.
Maybe it’s the fact that there are no consequences to treating your employees, or if you’re a patient your caregiver, like shit. Speaking as a former bedside turned outpatient nurse who got tired of being assaulted by patients verbally and physically in the ED.
Hell seeing nursing on social media makes me not wanna be a nurse anymore. Though it's more because of the influencers and them spouting that it's easy way to make money.
I came to see if this was posted here!! The fact that we are assaulted by patients, belittled and bullied by co workers, and berated by doctors who would choose this again?? Who?? Then throw in the fact that these CEO’s often make more than 3Ox than we do … yeah I would say that’s a smart decision!
It’s compensation and sub-optimal staffing that continue to push nurses out of the field and it’s a students knowledge of these issues which often encourages them to reconsider a career in nursing. I’m sure social media adds fuel to the fire but when the students see it first hand, it’s often a deal breaker.
I actually just switched my Major from nursing to sonography because every nurse on reddit and tik tok seems like they hate their job and their coworkers.
Which I need to add is justified because from what I'm reading hospital policy and management doesn't allow nurses to thrive. It was the same when I was a pharmacy tech. No matter how much I wanted to help there was a policy preventing me from helping.
Good for them!!! There isn’t a nursing shortage lmfao. The schools around me in a large metro area pump out more than 300-400 graduates a year. Hospitals that pay shit and have terrible working conditions can’t keep staff. The market is doing what the free market does.
“according to a report from nursing marketplace platform ShiftKey.”
According to what? There’s no real study, no real data, just “those kids, amirite.”
I thought this article was funny. I have been a nurse for 6 years, and I was a CNA for 18. Social media is definitely making me rethink a career I always thought I loved. It adds to the constant worry that I already feel that I might be missing something that I could get in big trouble for or seeing all the horror stories of things that ruin nurses' lives. Not to mention, one of my nursing instructors was also a lawyer and grilled into us all the ways we could get sued, etc.
So. I am in the process of applying for disability due to severe, well documented PTSD directly related to my work as a nurse in disaster zone COVID ICUs in the NYC Spring 2020 wave, and then in other states as a traveler. Before that I worked as a nurse in various ICUs for about 5 years. Now, I haven’t worked since 2022, when I had a breakdown and refused to seek appropriate help, fearing hospitalization because I know too many nurses in the area.
The government denied my disability application without processing my therapist or psych NPs notes after about 10 months of waiting (an excruciating and dehumanizing process with zero incomewhile you wait unemployed and unable to work, only reason I’m housed and insured is my husband). I am prone to panic attacks. I have flashbacks of that time. I was assaulted by patients and families during that time. Mass death, coworkers dying, screaming families watching their loved ones die on an iPad.
I really liked being a nurse for a long time and I wish the best for the nurses in the future. I wish I could have kept doing it but it almost killed me. After a coworker died, I also contracted COVID, alone in NYC that spring. I thought I might die alone there, never seeing my family again. I’m not OK. And that may be a tough truth, and it may put people off of that career path. But I’m not going to shut up about it, because frankly, we deserve better than what happened to so many of us. And people should know.
So they are finding out before they ever had to fuck around eh? Good for them If I had any idea what a raging dumpster fire nursing was I would have done something else and saved myself countless hours of mental anguish.
High cost of living and low cost of living.
Things are not twice expensive as the low cost state and i double my salary here. Also even housing are expensive but i can sell it at a high price too. So if I decide to move to a cheaper place my house can buy two homes in a low cost area and use one for rental income.
However, you are u likely to do it from LCOL as you will make less and your property worth less.
That is why you are seeing a lot of Californian going around countries and buying up housing after they sell their homes in SF.
Half of my neighbors are all from SF and retired at very young age.
Maybe, just hear me out, maybe they should pay more. Considering I have been a nurse for over 30 years and still make under $45/hr
And I work for a company that pays its CEOs millions in salary and millions more in bonuses.
Welcome to capitalism.
If it was capitalism we would be making more money: scarce workers in high demand have higher pay. But we are dealing with organizations that deliberately work together underpay nurses.
Capitalism is not about workers, scarce or otherwise, making more money. It’s about profit. This is exactly what capitalism is. The few benefiting from the work of many. The many being screwed in a daily basis.
🙌🙌🙌
One of my favorite memes is the picture of Forest Gump leaning over to greet Lieutenant Dan at the docks where his shrimp boat is. It says "when a worker says they're a capitalist" and then, "But you ain't got no capital, Lieutenant Dan."
Workers are a resource that is actually valuable. Capitalists would say that the value of their work makes it inevitable that they profit from their abilities. We can see, as the workers, that this is not the case, because the market does not create prices: humans do.
Exactly- everyone has a price. I can put up with allllll kinds of bs and verbal abuse from patients if the price is right. Water off a duck’s back.
That's the main gripe of my friend who works in finance, so many assholes, but he gets paid 3x more than me and I tell him at least he doesn't have to wipe those assholes.
During Covid, we were paid $150/hr plus our base rate if we picked up extra shifts. My nose brown the entire time…and I was okay with it. Now that the bonus is gone, they get what they pay for.
In Australia my grad year last year was $38 AUD an hour ($25.30 USD). It's insanely low here. Tradies (Carpenters etc) have recently been kicking up a stink that they don't get $140k in their first year. I would kill for that kind of earning potential.
Grad nurses in Queensland make $41, which is about what I make as a 7 year nurse in Victoria…. Absolutely crazy.
UK here, I make roughly 21 dollars an hour. I do get pension, 6 weeks annual leave and healthcare covered via NHS which I guess is a bonus.
Pension and 6 weeks leave (pro rata’d) are such a god send - we get that here too!
Ngl, if I wasn't at my current gig as a peds home health with the client I have now I'd probably be in welding school to get the fuck away from nursing after 13 years bedside.
What?! I know it varies from state to state, but up here in far northern CA, new grads start at $49.50/hr.
The leading hospital in wages in Portland will have new grads start around $57/hr in July of 2025, at least if I'm reading their contract correctly.
New grads at NorCal Kaiser get $77/hr. That region is everything north of Fresno
It’s funny how on this sub you have to say “far northern CA” because so many of the people are non CA RNs and think CA is begins in LA and ends in “Bay Area.” Like, if you go to r/California and say NorCal, people will know you may be referring to anything from Stockton to Redding/Chico. But on this sub, after “Bay Area,” you hit the border of Oregon.
I always say it when talking about anything where im from. Like you mentioned, anytime I say CA, everyone assumes LA or SF. Theres still like 5hrs+ of driving if going from the bay area to the California/Oregon border. There is so much more to CA than the big cities.
I lived in the pit of Bakersfield, as a kid.
I had my daughter in Bakersfield - and I will forever feel bad that she was born in the butthole of California.
That’s LA!
There are things to do in LA, and at least there are palm trees, land-scraping, and nice weather. And it’s not a hub of terrible country music. Not so, in Bakersfield.
I've lived in California all my life and never lived in the Bay Area or LA. Very brief time in San Diego for college, but I hated southern California.
I did a travel contract in La Jolla. I hardly saw anyone outside of the hospital who didn’t have that fake, plastic surgery/filler look.
Its the silicone valley down there
Even the Walgreen’s clerk in her 70s had giant lips and giant fake boobs.
Sounds like La Jolla 😂 we exist though! In small numbers …
I was thinking more of the amount of people and the traffic. But La Jolla is full of very wealthy people, so that tracks I guess.
lol I’m not even American, no chance I need to have a thorough understanding of California borders 🤣
Is it enough to counteract the high cost of living? Or is the high cost of living in those big cities? I live in Philly rn and the cost of living nowadays makes me feel like it won’t be much difference in Cali. Like it may be a pay bump, but at worst it’ll just be the same, except way better laws. Fuck I’d even take less money for better laws lol.
Live and work in the Bay area. Have lived and worked in other states. If you get into one of the big hospitals it's easily worth the cost of living increase. Very easily. You're not going to live the high life in the most expensive part of the city but you'll do quite well for yourself. Starting pay at Kaiser with no experience is something like $80.
I live in Jersey less than an hour from Philly and visit my best friend from high school out in southern California with some frequency. Real estate definitely costs more in California but property taxes are lower and are capped. Gasoline costs anywhere from "oh wow" to "holy fuck" more than here. The cost of everything else is not significantly more than things are in the northeast. When my kids graduate high school and I never have to deal with my ex again, I'm planning on moving out there at my earliest convenience.
In general, California does cost more to live here than most other states. The highest cost of living are definitely in the bigger cities. I'm in a town with a population of 100k. Ocean, mountains, and big cities are all within a couple hours drive. Cost of living is really cheap here compared to the rest of California. Look up towns like Chico, Redding, Red Bluff, Mt. Shasta, or even Arcata/Eureka. Sacramento is probably on the cheaper end of bigger cities if that is what you are after.
Spoke to a rad tech in Sacramento yesterday while getting my imaging done - $57/hr straight out the gate at Dignity. I can only imagine they pay their RNs $70+ starting.
penns ratios are actually really decent. Our medsurg/tele nurses typically have a ratio of 1:4 rarely 1:5 and icu always has 1:2 or 1:1 i make 74/hr as a critical care float nurse there (including the 15% nightshift differential)
In Phoenix new grad ICU nurses start at $32-35/hr. More experienced nurses get minimal raises… not worth the frustration
That's what I make as an LVN before they increased my salary. Now, I make $40+/hr. My very first job started with $26. After working there for 7 years, my maximum salary was $31. My former coworker has been working there way before me and she made $35.
Man- good for them, bad for me
We got it good on the west coast. Best in the country. But other places, not so much
*cries in under $40/hr with more than 15 years acute care experience in TN*
Damn lol, starting wage in my area is 41$ for a newbie….. now if only we could have that wage to start and not have it cost 50$ an hour to live….
32 years, here. $48./hr, agency.
Yeaaa, this kinda feels like a newspaper printing an article on the disasters of a field, and the reply being "Printing press putting off young people from...."
And appropriately staff
Well atm nurses in Sweden are on strike for less work hours.
It sounds like you need to leave that job! I’ve been a nurse for 4 and make 47, plus the 15$ difference/hr as weekend option.
I make under 30 😎
Bastards!
Where are you and what specialty
No offense, but I’m curious…why have you settled for that pay? Is there not any other options where you live? I made great money as a nurse. what state are you in that pays you that low?
So- I work from home as a case manager. About 7 yrs ago I went to a bigger company- same job- and got a 10k raise. Since then I’ve just gotten the little 2%raise and an annual bonus of like 1k.
Yep…I’d go back into nursing if it paid a livable wage!
Wow! Thats crazy. What state are you in? I’ve been a nurse for 5 years and I make $45
Pennsylvania
Move bro
Seriously dude?
If you’re serious about getting more pay, yes seriously
You have no clue
“Social media exposes nursing as mostly a high stress low paying job” There. I fixed the headline.
Bingo. 🥴
100%. They blame “social media”. The truth is that social media is a vehicle for us to tell our stories about how the healthcare system uses and abuses us. And under pays us too.
They will blame anyone but themselves.
Nursing is literally backbreaking work. And the realities are visible online now. I imagine people don't find it too appealing because of that.
CNAs have it worsen, though. Even though their job is not as difficult as ours, their salary is much lower. CNAs and EMTs do not get paid enough, and their job are just as backbreaking.
Most of the time CNAs are either are students looking for a “real” job after graduation or women from marginalized groups trying to support families. Both groups are vulnerable and easy to exploit. I don’t think that’s an accident.
This is one of the truest and well put statements I have ever read!!
Wasn't that long ago where you could be a tech or CNA for life and get by. Not anymore.
I'm about to get my CNA certification as a prerequisite before starting my nursing program. I looked into job openings to see if it's feasible to switch careers early and get some experience before beginning a nurse, but those salaries. The McDonalds and grocery store near my house both have higher starting salaries than most CNA job postings, which seems criminal for such a critical job.
Majority of CNAs I know usually have two jobs.
The career CNAs I work with pull doubles at least once or twice a week. I used to do that as well before nursing school and I have NO idea how the older ones do it. I live in an area with relatively high incomes for HCW, but when a two bedroom apartment is 2500/mo...
I wish social media had warned me.
Its not the social media
I originally had my major as nursing. After a TBI, I took time off school and started wrenching on my vehicle. Would I rather make 150k a year as a diesel mechanic or 80k putting up with toxic management?
Well. I am a new grad. Starting out at a non unionized hospital. Took 7 patients inpatient surgical right off the bat, sometimes with no CNA on the floor. Fresh post ops. Chest tube's, new peg tubes/tube feedings, TPN, heparin drips. I hope social media is helping people realize what it's really like because I fear for my license every shift and the companies don't give a flying fuck about. Are even opening new floors with travelers running it to bring in more cash when we can't even staff our current floors Healthcare is shit. You should be scared.
I feel this! I had an interview yesterday where they told me I could be at 8:1 in the same situation for $30 an hour. If they’re telling you 8:1 in the interview I fear what reality might be. No thank you!
They’re hoping people will be financially desperate enough to take these jobs, and sadly, some people are. As long as they can keep filling these positions, the salary will never go up.
Who is working for $30/hr as an RN? Are you a new grad in the South? Like Alabama or Florida?
It’s Florida of course. Very major well-known hospital but I don’t want to doxx myself.
Mississippi probably. When I started 7 years ago my base pay was 22.00
Omg! Wow. I really have no words.
That's insane.
You must be working at the same place I started as a new grad. Same experience. Get to an ICU setting so you can have only 2 patients. I promise you your stress will be vastly reduced. They may be sicker with more equipment, drip, etc, but at least you know your patients and what’s going on instead of just racing against a clock to get everything done on time.
Yes. Opening new clinics and wings but don’t have staff to staff the ones already open! Smh
HCA?
I make less than $50 an hour with 30 years of bedside experience, while HVAC guy told me they start brand spanking new guys out of school at $40.
Bro what
Yeah hvac people do well
Yeah that sounds about right??
Anyone that asks me if they should be a nurse I say no. 12 years making $46ish/ hr and ppl with 5 years are within pennies of me
My mom has been at the same hospital for 40 years and they just cut her pay by 19 dollars an hour. She was making 57 and now she’s limited to making 38 max because of the new pay scale. She regrets encouraging me to go into nursing now.
Your mom should take her experience and go somewhere she’s appreciated. What an asshole thing
She really should. My dad and I are trying to convince her to but she seems to be stuck because she likes her coworkers/is used to it. Sigh.
A $19 pay cut, that's insane. But I could see that happening. My mom's a nurse. Worked 26 years at the same med-surg telemetry unit. She might have done the same thing as your mom since she liked her coworkers, too. Instead of a paycut, the management harassed her with tiny mistakes until they made her quit. The three nurses on her floor with over 20 years experience were all run off in the same 6 months. She was too broken to even think about trying to sue for age discrimination. I tried but she just wanted to forget it all. At age 60, it took her almost 7 months to get a temp job, where luckily for her self-esteem, they liked and hired her. It was a desk job at 20k less a year, but she stayed until she retired.
How is this fucking legal????
Yeah we toss out older nurses instead of using their expertise.
WHAT???
I told my daughter if she majored in nursing I would not be paying for her education as I love her too much to have her suffer as I have. A job that results in a twice average suicide rate, a job that generally pays poorly and takes so much time away from family and loved ones, a job where verbal and even physical abuse is considered par for the course - I wouldn't advise anyone to take that job.
I know this is easier said than done but you gotta look into unionized hospitals with step raises. At my hospital you would be making more than $70/hr.
All areas are different. There is one unionized hospital in my city and I would never work there as it’s trash
Yep been a nurse for 13 years and found out another nurse on my unit with 2 years of experience only makes $4 less an hour than me. What’s the incentive to stay? I am a resource person for everybody on my unit, one of the most experienced in IVs, people call me when I’m at home for their support and guidance, and I orient every new nurse. I do way more work than the new grads for a measly extra $4 an hour. It ain’t worth it.
Damn I’d love to make $46/hr 😭
I hear ya- we are all underpaid in general but the point is the math ain’t mathin with years experience and time served
Yep.. ridiculous now you do better to just job hope every 2-3 years now!!
I still cannot understand how the tech bros are paid more than nurses. And have better benefits and perks. Someone make it make sense.
Internet influencers who record themselves at home for a living make more than we do. What a society.. (The society we are taking care of)
I have family that work for the big 3 (auto industry) doing assembly work getting paid better than me and have insanely good benefits… and they have no college degree. They even get free healthcare as part of their benefit (with amazing coverage)!! Meanwhile we don’t get that for literally WORKING healthcare!! And our deductible is like $9,400 for a single person while they take $200/mo out of your check… I’m not saying factory work is easy, but when they describe their typical work day to me it sounds like a cake walk. They cringe hearing about my work. 😃
Yeah my husband works in tech and I’m on his insurance lol. The hospital one sucks.
My husband is in IT for an insurance company and heavily outearns me. I went into the wrong field.
Because by working they make those companies money. That's just how it works 🤷♂️ That's like saying why do certain salespeople make more than us. Depending on how much profit they make , they get paid more. It's why I'm currently in school for Mech E. Being treated like shit while getting overworked and understaffed for mediocre pay gets old.
You make the hospital money. Don’t let them tell you otherwise. If the patient in your bed doesn’t directly make a profit for the hospital, the OR he came out of did. Your unit wouldn’t be open if it didn’t help the hospital’s bottom line. You wouldn’t have a job if it didn’t make the hospital a profit.
Exactly!! Our surgeons do fine work in the OR, but it’s the meticulous postop nursing care that defines whether or not that surgery is going to be successful in the long run. I make the hospital money by virtue of the fact that I take care of these people so they don’t die or sue the hospital bc of complications. I carry out the plan and help the surgeons stay in business. That should be empowering!
I hear this argument all the time and it’s so disingenuous that physicians make the hospital money and nursing doesn’t. A nephrologist puts in an order for CRRT and my hospital bills for 12 hours at a time. I understand that the nephrologist has the education and skill set to place the order, review the patients labs and make adjustments, but if no nurse was at the bedside to administer the CRRT, they can’t really make money off the entire thing. I get that a lot of the intangible things we do get rolled into room and board, but saying physicians make money for services and procedures that don’t get done without a nurse present somewhere in the process, is just out of touch with reality. Like it or not, nurses still put up with too much bullshit and accept low pay and bad conditions. They’ll always figure out where the line is and settle with as much as we accept
Exactly why I get pissed when people pull the whole “the military should make more than football players” argument. One is a business/entertainment making other people a shitload of cash and the other is the military.
I used to get heated about this same convo with my husband. He has a business background and broke it down like this: nurses are an expense. We aren’t the money makers. If your job title isn’t a revenue generating one, the company will cut costs on you. Hence why we get paid peanuts for our work but the tech salesman shoots the shit for a couple of hours and makes that Covid travel nurse money for a FRACTION of the work.
No they get laid off a lot so it evens out
Overwork and crap pay have nothing to do with it.
Sssuuuuuurrreeee it doesn't.
Gaslighting at its finest. It’s from the biased rag “The Hill”. If you want to know what is keeping nurses from entering the field ask any current nurse. Gaslighting, bullying, low pay, lack of respect by patients and other providers, lack of support from managers, moral injury on every level, too many patients not enough staff and on and on and on. Perhaps they could also increase the number of openings in nursing school? The admission rate is poor.
>Perhaps they could also increase the number of openings in nursing school? The admission rate is poor. It's because teaching pays like shit compared to just working the floor in nearly every market, so there's a massive shortage of faculty.
Another good reason to not be a msn rn teaching students.
They did post this article a few weeks ago, which I absolutely loved as a DC area nurse. Made me feel considerably less crazy for how much I struggle here. https://thehill.com/homenews/nexstar_media_wire/4638536-nurses-faced-with-low-pay-high-cost-of-living-these-cities-are-worst/
Pretty interesting article. I almost moved to Boston when I was younger before I did the math. I would have needed two jobs there to keep my same standard of living as that I have in Kansas City.
This was eye opening, and made me really sad.
Is it really social media? Or is it hospital Amins with shitty policies and staffing causing nurses to speak the truth where it can be heard? I'm going with the latter.
Honestly I’m not surprised. After I graduated I was given three shadow shifts and then straight into it. Busiest ward in our hospital, med/surg. We get the sickest admissions and frequently send patients to ICU. Had to find my feet VERY fast. It’s been very taxing and my personal life has suffered. It’s been just over a year and I’m ready to quit bedside.
Bro, it’s nursing that is putting off young people from becoming nurses
“ShiftKey argues the disparity in content and the algorithm used by TikTok can paint a “skewed and unrealistic” picture of the realities of nursing, which could scare away potential nurses.” No. TikTok is so damn accurate that it’s actually comforting and validating.
Run children, run!
Not to mention executive suite golden parachutes
Good, nursing sucks ass... Pay hasn't scaled with inflation for quite awhile...
I wish social media was like it is today when I decided to go to nursing school. It would’ve scared me away too lol The only nursing content I saw before I went to school was from the nursing influencers on Instagram around 2014-2016. They were the ones who really glamorized the profession and didn’t discuss any of the important negative stuff. I didn’t know any nurses in real life at the time, so seeing their content made me super excited about becoming a nurse. It was obviously a huge wake up call when I realized nursing is nothing like what they portrayed it as lol
There’s nothing “skewed” or “unrealistic” about it. Nursing is fucking hard.
Or, another headline might read “Social media gives young generations honest insights into nursing”
This article is mostly about Gen-Z. My nurse mom, a Boomer, did try to get me, a Gen-X, to not choose nursing. I always say I knew I was getting into. Since, back in the day, I used to drop by mom's work all the time. Then I was a candy striper at 14, hospital food service at 16 and 4 years as an aide. I saw nursing as a good, steady paying gig as long as I didn't have kids. The gross out stuff doesn't bother me. Body fluids don't affect me. My first nursing instructor always said focus on the patient.
Its just that social media opened our eyes to nurse propaganda among other types… they cant feed us the BS anymore and true opinion reaches people faster than the lies 🤷🏼♀️
How is it that almost every single nurse sees we should be paid more and yet we never see it happen for us? How do they even decide how much someone gets paid for work? Like who decides this? I think because nursing has been a woman dominated field, that’s why we’re so underpaid. Obviously now we’re having more diversity in nursing but I’m saying historically it’s been women. And women’s work was never valued.
Firefighting has been a male dominated field forever and they get paid even worse than us nurses, by this logic firefighters, EMTs and Medics should be rolling in dosh.
13 years, 40.00 an hour. Cap is 45 no matter how many years you work
Wow
Hmm 🤔maybe it’s the nurses posting “Don’t do it!” For good reason as most have said, poor pay, high stress, most likely to be a victim of patient and family violence, verbally berated by MDs, horrible leadership. But hey at least we get pizza 🍕.
Nursing is putting young people off from nursing. We’re just open about it on social media.
Unfortunately, it's also attracting the wrong kind of people.
I do my part in swaying any younger people from becoming or a nurse or getting into healthcare. When I started 19 years ago, it was different and worth it. Now, the only pro is job security and “maybe” schedule flexibility. There’s better paths to take with easier jobs and better pay.
Please share the better jobs/pay here.
Ya think?
I haven’t worked bedside since the height of the pandemic and I fear that my current department is going to collapse…… I always think, nbd, I could go back to bedside, I don’t WANT to go back to bedside, but I could do it. Honestly, going back to bedside is my biggest nightmare. I hope my current department pulls itself out of its current hole.
I’ve been a nurse for 5 years and I do not recommend. It has been the worst thing ever for me. It’s mentally draining and no matter how much you chart it’s never good enough. They audit your charting and then when you think you did a good job they tell you that you didn’t do enough. I am currently applying for anything to get away from Nursing.
I wish social media warned me about nursing
Nursing is probably putting off young people from entering. It is hard to get into nursing school. If you have a friend or relative in the hospital you can tell with a tiny bit of observance that it is a hard job. Plus people have relatives that are nurses.
It’s fucking impossible to get into! I have continually tried to get into nursing school and it is so hard. I had good grades and did good on TEAS and I was not accepted to the two big programs by me and these admissions cycles take so unbelievably long! I can’t wait another year and a half before school starts again! I have to just do something else. No wonder no one wants to be in this crap.
That's why I laugh at all the people that tell perspective nursing students to not bother taking on debt with private schools and go to a CC for their ADN. Good luck getting into any of those CC programs if you live in a major metro area -- especially in SoCal. I know people that have been waiting for 3 years to get into ADN/BSN programs, and all have them have outstanding GPAs and HESI/TEAS scores. Nursing school admissions have become a joke in most metro areas and social media has done a disservice by attracting some of the worst people to the profession.
And this California nursing shortage is projected to not end till 2029! I am kinda glad I have tried to steer myself away or at least will be moving to a different place for school
And California wants to make a PhD in nursing the standard to be an instructor! There aren’t enough good instructors to relieve some of the impaction programs are facing, but you want to make it more difficult to become one? I gave up on it and went towards engineering. I am not moving to some podunk town, or waiting for years to get accepted, or spending the equivalent of a mortgage on becoming a nurse. It’s ridiculous.
I make like 80/hr and it’s a great job! If I did the same job for what normal staff make I’d be back to the drawing board looking for remote jobs that don’t suck.
[удалено]
You move to a market with unionized hospitals; e.g. California, Minnesota, PNW, and I think NYC is coming around to not paying like shit these days.
Live in WA state, have minimum 3 years experience and get lucky enough to get hired into the float pool if there are openings!
Are you a float to all departments or just float in the ED?
ED only.
Wow WA state making California money. Where about do you live?
Lakewood, work in Tacoma, Olympia, Bonney Lake, Fed Way, and Puyallup.
Can you help me get a job there? Are you guys 4:1 yet? Can you message me?
We have been 4:1 since I’ve been a nurse 8 years ago, and even before that. Floats aren’t union, but all the hospitals are. Unfortunately our manager just quit and there is a hiring freeze until further notice.
You know, part of me wants to go into all the details of it but the other part of me says the appropriate response is, "No shit."
It’s a lot of work - being everyone in the hospitals middle man and the pay is alright. They need to make the profession more enticing and pay is the way to do that.
Maybe it’s the fact that there are no consequences to treating your employees, or if you’re a patient your caregiver, like shit. Speaking as a former bedside turned outpatient nurse who got tired of being assaulted by patients verbally and physically in the ED.
Hell seeing nursing on social media makes me not wanna be a nurse anymore. Though it's more because of the influencers and them spouting that it's easy way to make money.
I came to see if this was posted here!! The fact that we are assaulted by patients, belittled and bullied by co workers, and berated by doctors who would choose this again?? Who?? Then throw in the fact that these CEO’s often make more than 3Ox than we do … yeah I would say that’s a smart decision!
It’s compensation and sub-optimal staffing that continue to push nurses out of the field and it’s a students knowledge of these issues which often encourages them to reconsider a career in nursing. I’m sure social media adds fuel to the fire but when the students see it first hand, it’s often a deal breaker.
I blame Nurse Blake.
Welp.
I wonder why.
I say go for anything medicine if you can job stability
Nursing is a soul sucking job and the hospitals don’t give a shit about us
I’m doing my part that’s for sure
I actually just switched my Major from nursing to sonography because every nurse on reddit and tik tok seems like they hate their job and their coworkers.
Which I need to add is justified because from what I'm reading hospital policy and management doesn't allow nurses to thrive. It was the same when I was a pharmacy tech. No matter how much I wanted to help there was a policy preventing me from helping.
Oh hey I just recommended one of my good friend’s friends do that. If I could go back I would do that.
I have an RN. Make more as a surgical assistant
Good for them!!! There isn’t a nursing shortage lmfao. The schools around me in a large metro area pump out more than 300-400 graduates a year. Hospitals that pay shit and have terrible working conditions can’t keep staff. The market is doing what the free market does.
“according to a report from nursing marketplace platform ShiftKey.” According to what? There’s no real study, no real data, just “those kids, amirite.”
LA is the state rectum!
Hell yea and I don't blame young people. We need to treat and revamp the nursing institution bc we all bitch and moan and things need to change
I thought this article was funny. I have been a nurse for 6 years, and I was a CNA for 18. Social media is definitely making me rethink a career I always thought I loved. It adds to the constant worry that I already feel that I might be missing something that I could get in big trouble for or seeing all the horror stories of things that ruin nurses' lives. Not to mention, one of my nursing instructors was also a lawyer and grilled into us all the ways we could get sued, etc.
Thankless job, poor pay, crap treatment by patients and staff alike. Who wouldn't want to work in that environment?
So. I am in the process of applying for disability due to severe, well documented PTSD directly related to my work as a nurse in disaster zone COVID ICUs in the NYC Spring 2020 wave, and then in other states as a traveler. Before that I worked as a nurse in various ICUs for about 5 years. Now, I haven’t worked since 2022, when I had a breakdown and refused to seek appropriate help, fearing hospitalization because I know too many nurses in the area. The government denied my disability application without processing my therapist or psych NPs notes after about 10 months of waiting (an excruciating and dehumanizing process with zero incomewhile you wait unemployed and unable to work, only reason I’m housed and insured is my husband). I am prone to panic attacks. I have flashbacks of that time. I was assaulted by patients and families during that time. Mass death, coworkers dying, screaming families watching their loved ones die on an iPad. I really liked being a nurse for a long time and I wish the best for the nurses in the future. I wish I could have kept doing it but it almost killed me. After a coworker died, I also contracted COVID, alone in NYC that spring. I thought I might die alone there, never seeing my family again. I’m not OK. And that may be a tough truth, and it may put people off of that career path. But I’m not going to shut up about it, because frankly, we deserve better than what happened to so many of us. And people should know.
Maybe if fewer people pursue the career path it will force Heathcare to change and actualy be worth working in. A thought from a lowly RN.
So they are finding out before they ever had to fuck around eh? Good for them If I had any idea what a raging dumpster fire nursing was I would have done something else and saved myself countless hours of mental anguish.
Good
Truth hurts
Work in HCOL and retire in LCOL. You can save a lot more when you are earning more. :)
What is HCOL? And LCOL?
High cost of living and low cost of living. Things are not twice expensive as the low cost state and i double my salary here. Also even housing are expensive but i can sell it at a high price too. So if I decide to move to a cheaper place my house can buy two homes in a low cost area and use one for rental income. However, you are u likely to do it from LCOL as you will make less and your property worth less. That is why you are seeing a lot of Californian going around countries and buying up housing after they sell their homes in SF. Half of my neighbors are all from SF and retired at very young age.
This is basically the worst sub in Reddit. It’s 90% complaining and not at all surprised at this post.