June 23, 2007

How much are we worth?

Update: Championship game went great, but we lost 9-13. Either way, the kids were happy. Hey, 2nd place ain't bad eh? I'll post some pics as soon as I upload them.

I was reading on today that in some places starting pay for an RN is around $16 an hour. Huh? Are you kidding me? If someone offered that pay to me after all I've been through I'd laugh myself right on outta my chair! I know that a lot of it has to do with the cost of living in some areas, but dayum...that's just being cheap if you ask me. Not that the starting pay here is all that great or anything, but it's a lot better than that malarchy. We work way too hard and stress too dang much for wages like that. Exactly what are those people trying to play at? Do they not realize that nurses are indispensable?

In my neck of the woods starting pay is at around $18.50.....with nights you get about a $1.50 differential and weekends a $2.00 diff. So if you work nights and weekends you can make around $22 an hour or more because of the shift changes. So you can average around $42,000 a year. Not too shabby I suppose for working 3 days a week. The cost of living in my area is not bad at all, so it's all relative.

On the other hand....I also read that some new nurses start out at around $40 and hour (California) and $26 and hour in bigger cities across the US. I guess $40/hr in Cali would be like making $20 here b/c of the cost of living.

I hope wherever you choose to work they compensate you well...because you deserve it!

2 comments:

Raspberry Stethoscope said...

Hi, I just wanted to say that I read your blog all the time. I noticed from previous posts shirts that say, "HCC nursing." Is this hillsborough community college?? If so, I go to USF and I know that the starting pay in the Tampa area is definitely more than just 18.50.
If you're not from Tampa, then sorry for the mix up and keep blogging:)

Christy said...

Hi, and thanks for reading and posting. No, I don't go to Hillsborough. I live in Kentucky. :-) 18.50 is kinda crappy huh? I think so too.