According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are nearly 3 million registered nurses in America. Their mean annual wage is $80,010, which makes nursing among the best-paid jobs in the country. The effort to become an RN is considerable. Most nurses go through a four-year bachelor’s degree in nursing. Once they graduate, what they can earn relies considerably on location.
The BLS defines a registered nurse as:
Assess patient health problems and needs, develop and implement nursing care plans, and maintain medical records. Administer nursing care to ill, injured, convalescent, or disabled patients. May advise patients on health maintenance and disease prevention or provide case management. Licensing or registration required. Includes Clinical Nurse Specialists. Excludes “Nurse Anesthetists”, “Nurse Midwives”, and “Nurse Practitioners”.
It puts the total number of registered nurses in America at 2,986,500. Their pay, calculated on an hourly basis has a mean of $38.47. The lowest 10% of nurses based on pay make mean pay of $25.68 an hour or $53,410. In the 90th percentile, the hourly figure is $55.88, which translates into annual compensation of $116,230.
“General Medical and Surgical Hospitals” employ the most nurses nationwide at 1,729,200. Their mean annual wages are $81,680. The second-largest RN group is employed in the “Offices of Physicians”. This totals 192,300 RNs with a mean annual wage of $71,660.
The state where RNs are paid the most is also the state with the most RNs. California has 307,060 RNs and their mean annual wage is $120,560. Hawaii, among the smallest states with 11,260 RNs, ranks second in pay at a mean annual wage of $104,830.
The states where RNs are paid the least are South Dakota which has 13,130 RNs who make a mean wage of $60,960, followed by West Virginia which has 19,800 RNs who have an annual mean wage of $65,130.
The Five States Where Registered Nurses Make The Most
State Employment Annual Mean Wage
California 307,060 $120,560
Hawaii 11,260 $104,830
Massachusetts 84,030 $96,250
Oregon 36,840 $96,230
Alaska 6,240 $95,270
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