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Low Nurse Wages and Nurse Shortages: Cause and Effect

A new study released by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR) has found that increasing nurses’ pay is the most direct way to solve the hospital nurse shortage.

The study uses data on 18,300 hospital nurses from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) Current Population Survey from September 1995 to April 2005, and provides state and metropolitan data and comparisons on nurse wages. The report finds that when nurse pay rises, so does the number of hospital nurses.

When nurse pay remains flat, nurses opt for more satisfying or less stressful work environments such as doctors’ offices. The study’s authors conclude that strategies to solve the shortage, such as subsidies for nurse education and media campaigns to make nursing attractive, will be unsuccessful unless coupled with higher wages. Simply increasing the number of qualified workers will not solve the problem — the new nurse graduates will look for more attractive jobs with other employers.

IWPR also found that unionization has a significant impact on nurse wages. IWPR’s analysis finds that “unions yield an average of 28 percent boost in nurses’ wages across 67 of the largest metropolitan statistical areas in the United States.” Unions also increase hospitals’ staffing ratios. Nurse-to-patient ratios in the most unionized cities are 19 percent higher than in cities with the lowest level of nurse unionization.

The report recommends that hospitals use competitive wage-setting practices to pay nurses their worth, help maintain adequate staffing levels and improve patient care. It also calls for raising nurse educator wages, and state and federal staffing ratios initiatives.

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