Top 10 Best and Worst States to Be a Nurse

Bhawaii: I am an RN of 29 yrs but have not worked from 2004-06 due to 2 accidents within 1 mth of each other.Worked for a relatively new registry from May to September, "08 however they didn't offer much work but at least I got my feet wet again. Where are you getting the work with such high pay??? I have worked CVDOU and stepdown, as well as telemetry but I want more experience in the basics before I get my ACLS again and more up to the units. Any suggestions would be much appreciated. thanks....................Jeannette

License Nurse Aide/ CNA make $13- $18 an hour in New Hampshire. I am working on my nursing degree and do hope to be paid much higher than what this article is reporting. I have heard Massachussets pays much, much more but, the income taxes are killer.

I agree pronurse. These must be LPN rates. We are a union hospital in the twin cities, and starting pay for a new grad nurse is almost $29.00/hr. Experienced nurses obviously make much more than that.

If your employer is not doing a yearly 'market analysis' of what other facilities in your area are paying, they should be. I have received two unexpected raises of $1.00/hr in three years in addition to 3-3.5% per year raises. I have been in the field 10 years, and have gone from a start of $12.50/hr in 1998 to $25.89 today. Part of that increase came from changing jobs; and from a three year attempt at unionization in which the contract gave us 6% a year. I can't complain. The rates (excluding agency RNs) are pretty consistent here as a result of these market surveys. (I'm in St. Louis and we need RNs; scrub techs as well, I'm in the OR)

I agree that insufficient training and preceptorship is a tremendous cause of frustration for new grads. You're often being trained by a short-staffed, burned-out crew, and the consistency of preceptorship suffers. I was 6 months out of school and assigned as night charge nurse on a medicine floor over four other very experienced RNs (who didn't want the position); 52 beds, 9-10 patients/RN. Assignments were not by acuity, but by hallway, so some nights, some RNS 'got off easy' while others struggled to get their charting done by 5 am before the docs started making rounds. Needless to say, my stress level was through the roof, and when the hospital started a fellowship program to train RNs to work in surgery, I jumped at it. Haven't looked back. I remember once having 4 patients over the age of 96, one of whom didn't want to disturb me at 2 am because she thought I was 'napping', LOL. So she got up to go to the BR on her own and fell. My first 'incident' (of course writing it up and getting her hip xrayed shoots your night). By the grace of God, her hip wasn't broken.

Anyone interested in working in STL, write me here.

One thing that this article does not take into account is the fact that the cost of living is less in the lower paying states. The cost of living in California and Hawaii (the two highest paying states) is astronomical compared to that in Oklahoma, Arkansas and others on this list! I would venture to say that the reason for the $10 decrease in hourly wages from California to South Dakota is because housing, groceries, and utilities also drop in price.

i am an lpn charge nurse and have been at the same ltc facility for 10 years. i started at 14.50 an hr and 10 yrs later only make 21.50. benefits are very exspensive. i get a 3% raise a year. and now because of the rising economy i am looking for a per diem job which is not going so well. my job will not give overtime because of the budget!! its crazy---shanen

I am strictly an agency LPN I work through 5 different agencies in the little rock, AR area. Payscale is anywhere from 20-30 dollars an hour. I do pretty good and when i pass my nclex-rn it will be a little more than double. 32-44 an hour.. by working like this I work in around 30 different facilities. which counts up for a lot of different experience fast. thats what i like.

My niece just graduated with a BSN in June and is working at an acute care hospital in Philadelphia with a starting salary of more than $55,000. Where did you get these numbers? Nursing salaries are highly variable state to state. Nurses in RI go to Boston to earn almost double what they could make in Providence. Nurses in community nursing have traditionally made less than acute care. Many nurses in the early late 1970s were making $20/hr. Surely, even in poor paying areas, nurses practicing in a professional model make more than what you say, or should I be thankful that I've always worked in urban areas!