Nurses Split on Reports of Salary Increase
By Jennifer Larson, contributor
Despite the tightening economy and mounting job losses in other industries, approximately half of the nurses in a recent survey reported that they were given raises in the last few months, while the average nursing pay rose for both salaried and hourly workers.
The results weren’t completely positive, however.
RN Magazine surveyed almost 700 nurses to learn more about their financial situation over the past couple of years. The results showed some encouraging news, with a few areas of concern. The news varied according to where the nurses were employed and what specialty they practiced.
That’s why Cheryl Peterson, senior policy analyst for the American Nurses Association, offered a cautious response to the survey, saying, “I think we ought to temper our enthusiasm.”
The survey found that about half of the nurse respondents received a raise during the past seven months, with the average being 3.2 percent. Also, since the previous survey was conducted in 2007, the average annual base pay of nurses in salaried positions increased by 10 percent to $75,180, and hourly workers saw their annual base pay grow by 13 percent to $64,018.
One of the contributing factors to who saw gains and who didn’t was location. Nurses in the Mid-South region of the United States received 17 percent more per hour than they did in 2007, followed by nurses in the Southwest who earned 12 percent more and nurses in the Far West who earned 11 percent more. The news was very different, however, for nurses in the center of the country, including the Great Plains, who reported an 11 percent drop in their wages since 2007.
Peterson noted that some of the areas that experienced drops in wages are also the areas hardest hit by the recession, such as the Great Lakes region.
“I think it is still dependent on what part of the country you are in,” she said.
While she thought the survey did offer some good news, Peterson stressed that it is crucial to not forget the rest of the story.
“We still have a lot of new graduates who are taking longer to find jobs. And we still haven’t seen [the effect] of the budget cuts from the states,” she said.
Experts have noted that some regions, such as the San Francisco Bay Area in California, have recently reported a tightening of the job market for nurses who are just starting their careers. And the survey found that nurses under 30 typically didn’t experience the same financial success as some of their older colleagues; this age group actually suffered a “financial reversal,” making an average of $2.21 less per hour in 2009.
However, Peterson was pleased to see that many specialties experienced pay increases and hopes that that nurses will be motivated to continually build their bases of knowledge and their competencies in these arenas.
“That is extremely encouraging and a trend we need to support,” she said.
According to the survey, outpatient nurses earned the most of any specialty with a $38.83 average hourly wage (they also received the largest raise, at 28 percent), with post-anesthesia care unit nurses coming in second and psychiatric nurses taking third place. Orthopedic nurses trailed closely behind psychiatric nurses in overall pay, and they received the third largest pay increase, behind outpatient and post-anesthesia care nurses.
Some specialties, however, were less fortunate. Nurses specializing in ambulatory-surgery care experienced a 5 percent drop in hourly wages from 2007 to 2009, and geriatric nurses remained the lowest-paid specialty.
“I think it’s very disappointing that we continue to see that they are the lowest-paid specialty,” Peterson said. “We are going to have to rely on them in the coming years.”
“Where do we go from here?” the survey asked in conclusion. The survey’s authors say they are “cautiously optimistic.” They note that the demand for nurses is likely to increase in the future, and that may help nursing salaries stay competitive in the future. There are also a number of initiatives, including proposed legislation, that have been created with the goal of bolstering the future nursing workforce.
Peterson said that it will take a variety of strategies to make it happen.
“We have made progress in our wages,” she said. “But we must remain vigilant. We saw ten years of stagnant or declining wages in the past. We must never let that happen again.”
© 2009. AMN Healthcare, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
