California Tops List
The mean salary for the country’s 3 million RNs was just over $89,000 last year.
California paid the highest mean salary at $133,340 followed by Hawaii, which had a $20,000 lower mean than California. Oregon, Massachusetts, and Alaska, had the next highest salaries, ranging from roughly $106,000 to $103,000, according the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
Trends and Salaries Interactive Results
2022 nursing trends and salary survey results
Of the top 10 metropolitan areas for salary, all were in California, led by San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward at $164,760.
Among the five industries that employ the greatest number of the country’s RNs, outpatient centers paid the highest mean wage at $97,200 and skilled nursing facilities the lowest at $77,190. General and surgical hospitals came in at $90,600, home health care at $82,920, and physicians’ offices at $79,810.
Some industries outside of traditional healthcare facilities have much high mean salaries, but most employ few nurses. One exception is employment services, which employed 118,00 RNs last year at a mean salary of $109,050.
The salary ranges in the BLS annual report are similar to those collected in American Nurse Journal’s sixth annual Nursing Trends and Salary Survey, released earlier this year. Of the more than 4,000 nurses who completed the survey, 46% said they earned between $80,000 and $139,000, up from 39% the year prior. Nearly half reported earning less than $80,000.