Why Do Nurses Make So Much Money?

Most people are know aware of how much money nurses make. It used to be that it wasn’t well known outside of the medical industry. But with the last few years, the news cycle has made it well known  that nurses are very well paid.

But why do nurses make so much money? How is it possible that nurses make the same or more than a lawyer or executive?

There are a number of reasons that nurses make so much money. Some of them have to do with government incentives, others have to do with the skill needed and unpleasant nature of the job.

We can review them all for you below.

Reason #1: Government Mandates

Thankfully there are government mandates in place that require people to have access to medical care. This is why you cannot be turned away from an emergency room. In many cases you will be sent to a public hospital, but you won’t be sent home ill.

In many large cities, millions of people take advantage of public healthcare. This requires numerous nurses to be on site and care for the patients who come in each day.

There are also mandates on patient to nurse ratios. Nurses are always vigilant to strike for both higher and more equitable pay as well as better ratio standards.

The increasing population is also something that calls for more nurses. In cities with large influx of migrants:  New York, Texas, California, and other destination points, millions of migrants come to hospitals every day. They require nurses to handle everything from the common cold, to illness such as TB and Cholera that they are suffering from.

Without government mandates, hospitals would be understaffed and people would suffer. Because of this, money is no object. Billions is collected every years from taxes in order to pay for medical care.

Without this money, the medical base would completely collapse. So, the government mandates at the federal and state level which require hospitals and nurses to be on hand to treat patients makes it so that there is a guarantee of funding.

Whenever you are dealing with the government and publicly funded jobs, the pay is high and guaranteed.

Reason #2: High Demand for Nurses

The number one reason that there is a high demand for nurses is the increasing population. And more importantly, that population is one who needs the hospital.

In cities like NYC and LA, tens of thousands of people arrive who need to have medical treatment. Many are immigrants who are not able to find work and who have young children who also need treatment. Many adults are not able to afford health insurance and have to find assistance in public hospitals—which nurses unions explain are understaffed—and so have to go to the hospital system for basic healthcare.

While many hospitals function with nurse aids and patient care techs handling basic nursing roles, these roles cannot take the place of registered nurses.

Sick patients and even those who are not sick but who present with illness and might only have the common cold still need to have legally mandated medical treatment.

For this reason, nurses are always going to be in high demand.

Nurses make lots of money-

• they make huge sums of money for the hospitals that can bill the government (a major reason why nurses strike for better pay).
• They make good money for staffing agencies (agencies make good money off of nurses)
• And even nurse recrutiers make money (though not as much as that TikTok nurse recruiters claim–the avg compensation for nurse recrutiers is 1/3 or 1/4 as much as a nurse).

Reason #3: No One Wants To Be A Nurse

When it’s common to see nurses working 3 days a week and making 100k+, people wonder why they aren’t nurses!

Well, nursing isn’t a glamorous life. Nurses make so much money because of many things, but one of the reasons is that it’s a dirty job (how many people do you know who have to deal with human waste—poop—on a daily basis!)

The cold hard fact is that working as a nurse is an unpleasant job. The hours are long, your co-workers are often hostile (they don’t say nurses eat their own to be funny) and patients often can be violent, dangerous, or simply contagious.

Some nurses work as travel nurses in order to make more money. This is lucrative, but it’s also stressful. Many travel nurses resort to quitting jobs, taking year long vacations from work, and develop unhealthy living habits (drug abuse and unhealthy food choices are very common among travel nurses).

There is little barrier to becoming a nurse. Unlike many professions where performance is important, nursing requires only that a person attend nursing school (which are now offered online and even at the associates degree level). It’s a perfect job for people without traditional academic skills, or newly arrived citizens who are not able to obtain a college degree because they are working full time (nurses can get a nursing school online at night).

However, there comes with this some large problems. Particularly, the environment for nurses can be very dangerous and unpleasant. Nurses have been known to assault each other, fall victim of assault by the hands of patients

Reason #4: The Increase In People Who Go To The Hospital

Part of the reason that nurses are paid so well is that there are more people who go to the hospital. More and more people go to the hospital every year. It’s no longer common for people to go to a family doctor, they simply head straight to a hospital.

Some of this has to do with the affordability of hospitals, especially public hospitals, and the other aspect is that people are becoming more and more unhealthy. They need to go to the hospital more frequently.

With the rise of obesity and all other forms of illness has increased in recent years. People are simply more unhealthy and because of this there are more people visiting the hospital.

And as we have discussed, hospitals are not like private businesses. In a private business, a owner might only hire one person to handle the task at hand, hospitals are required to hire multiple nurses.

There are often cases where there are many nurses hired –overstaffed—to account for nursing shortages which would be problematic.

Do Nurse Really Make More Than Doctors?

In some cases nurses do make more than doctors, but this is unusual and not the norm. The instances where nurses will make more than doctors is limited to travel nurses and emergency contracts.

For instance, travel nurses who work overtime shifts in cities like Chicago, L.A., D.C, or NYC are commonly paid more than doctors. However, these are not typical.

Staff nurses are not paid more than doctors. Staff nurses are often paid more than lawyers and other professionals, and they will make more than doctors who are training in the hospital.

The situation is exacerbated because nurses who do Travel and make huge paychecks like to boast on social media. When travel nurses go on Instagram or TikTok and showcase their paychecks.

In reality, nurses make a lot of money. This is why people go into nursing. Unlike jobs where you are only paid well if you succeed and are judged on performance (performance reviews do not exist in nursing) there is no stress in nursing.

Nursing provides total job security. So, while many nurses might not make more than a doctor, they still make excellent money and have job security. As long as a nurse shows up to work their shift they will be paid.