The populations of the USA, Canada, and many Western nations are ageing. That is, the proportion of older citizens is rising due to improvements in longevity due to better health care  while the proportion of  young people is declining due to decreased fertility rates. The older population pays a larger proportion of it's income to health care for many reasons inclusive of the chronic diseases associated with increasing age. The aforementioned demographics clearly imply that there will be a significant increase in demand for health care services with fewer trained and qualified health  professionals to provide this same medical care. A  significant "nursing shortage", given the aforementioned, seems inevitable. However, there seems to be no  "nursing shortage" now due to the current economic tragedy taking place in the world. Inevitably, however, this "nursing" and "medical care" shortage is going to develop given the mathematical, social, demographic, economic, and political realities that are developing.  Such efforts made by our politicians to plan for and address this looming "nursing shortage" problem have not addressed the causes of the same but rather have, in the long run, only exacerbated the same, given the aforementioned. The individual nurse should realize, however, that maintaining  your nursing license will, likely, within a few years, provide for a profession that is highly remunerative with significantly improved working conditions. The URL for the Wikipedia Article Describing the increased Ageing of the Population is:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aging_population