Why do registered nurses make so much

Registered nurses can make more money by picking up overtime shifts, pursuing travel nursing, or going back to school to learn a specialty that will allow them to earn more. Education and specialization are the top ways to earn more as a nurse.

Build a career you'll love What. Per hour Per day Per week Per month Per year. Average base salary Data source tooltip for average base salary. Additional compensation Data source tooltip for additional compensation. Referral program. View more benefits. Was the salaries overview information useful? Salaries by years of experience in Washington State Years of experience Per hour.

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Top skill Salary. ICD Coding. Acute Care. Dialysis Experience. Utilization Review. Depending on where a registered nurse works, the cost of living can be significantly higher or lower.

For a registered nurse to live within that area, they would need to be well compensated. While not always the case, a highly populated metropolitan area such as a large city will likely have a higher cost of living associated with it, leading to a higher demand for qualified registered nurses and a salary increase. As more and more of the baby boomer population of nurses begin to retire and the economy continues to grow, the need for experienced nurses also continues to grow, which creates a gap between the number of people that need good healthcare and the number of nurses that are available to provide adequate healthcare.

Without a good supply of nurses waiting room times will increase, opportunities to provide good healthcare decrease, and the stress placed on healthcare works and the healthcare system becomes continually overwhelming.

This growing demand means that more and more healthcare organizations will be willing to increase the salaries of highly trained registered nurses to keep them happy and provide an incentive for their continued efforts and hard work.

After all, registered nurses work very hard to ensure that their patients are properly taken care of. In addition to providing existing nurses with an incentive to work for a particular healthcare organization, it is also essential for incentivizing students to take up a career in the nursing field.

When a student has a choice to make in terms of what career they want to focus on, the amount of pay they can earn and the benefits they might receive can go along way in helping them decide on whether they want to go into a particular field of studies such as business, education, engineering or healthcare.

If a student will spend multiple years training for a career that they plan on spending the next 30 — 40 years or more doing, then pay, and benefits are a significant driver for helping them make that decision. In addition to the high demand for registered nurses, there is also a good incentive to pay well educated and trained nurses to compete for employment opportunities.

This may be especially true in areas where the demand for nurses is significantly higher than the availability of qualified nurses. When multiple organizations compete to hire a good nurse, that may help drive up the potential salary for qualified nurses. For example, nurses who work for a hospital or healthcare facility dealing with a nursing shortage may rack up significantly more hours than they would work at a well-staffed healthcare facility and thus earn a higher salary.

In either case, a registered nurse may earn a much higher salary than they would otherwise make if they worked part-time or full time without the overtime or extra hours. While some nurses and unions will hold strikes or advocate for greater increases to nursing salaries, those are likely longer-term strategies. In short, travel nurses are typically compensated more than staff nurses.

This is often the case in bigger cities and particularly during times when demand for additional nursing staff is heightened i. This also depends on how much they work. Many travel nurses work a week contract and then travel for a month before beginning another assignment. Here's a look at the highest paying travel nursing jobs of Additionally, unlike the more rigid annual salary of a staff nurse, travel nursing pay packages include both taxable and non-taxable income in the form of reimbursements and stipends.

This means that a large portion of your nursing salary is not taxed at the end of the fiscal year. In other words, if you compared a staff salary and a travel nurse salary set at the same base amount, the travel nurse would actually get to keep more of that in their pocket. However, money is still an important factor in your decision making. You can learn more about getting started as a travel nurse here.

Where you live primary state of residence and where you work will largely determine how much money you make as a nurse. Some states, or even cities, will pay noticeably higher salaries to nurses based on their needs or the cost of living in the area. Many destinations are sought after for their competitive nursing compensation, while others for their culture, social ambience, or even natural beauty.

California, for example, is one of the top-paying states for nurses across the board, although the cost of living is significantly higher than in some other states.

To help get you started, here are some of the most popular cities for travel nurses to work in as well as the highest-paying cities for nurses throughout