2021 Annual Salary Survey BY CIARA CURTIN
In this year’s salary survey, nurses reported a small boost in pay as compared to 2020, though experience and educational background affect salaries.
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urses reported earning slightly higher salaries this year than they did last year. Factors including experience and education, though, influence income levels. Respondents to this year’s Minority Nurse salary survey said they earned a median salary of $70,000, a small bump from the median $65,469 respondents to last year’s salary survey reported. African American nurses, in particular, reported nearly flat pay. This year, African American nurses said they made a median $73,000, while last year reported making a higher median salary of $74,000 and five years ago reported earning a median $62,500 in salary. Hispanic or Latino/Latina nurses, though, reported a rise in pay. This year, Hispanic nurses said they made a median $75,000, as compared to
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$56,100 in 2020 and $62,400 in 2016. To amass this new data, Minority Nurse and Springer Publishing e-mailed a link to an online survey that asked nurses not about only their salaries, but also about how long they have been in the profession, their educational backgrounds, and any specialties they may have. More than 200 nurses from across the United States— from Arizona to Wisconsin— took the survey. While respondents work in a number of roles and in a range of settings—spanning triage to education to leadership and management and public hospitals to private practices— more than half are involved in patient care. Respondents also hail from various career stages, but many are fairly new to nursing: Nearly half of respondents have been working
Salary Survey Special Issue 2021
as a nurse for five years or less. This may affect pay. Very early-career nurses, those who have been working in the field for less than a year, reported earning a median $57,000. But with experience, salaries tended to rise. Nurses with one to five years of experience said they made $59,670, while nurses who have been in the field for 21 or more years reported a median salary of $75,000. This largely tracks with what respondents reported last year: In 2020, nurses with less than a year of experience reported a median salary of $42,000, rising to a median salary of $82,000 for nurses with 21 years or more of experience. Additionally, educational background influences salary levels. Nurses with associate’slevel degrees reported a median salary of $60,000, while those with bachelor’s degrees
reported a higher median salary of $73,000. Meanwhile, nurses with master’s degrees and doctoral-level degrees, reported further boosts in pay, earning a median $87,000 and $76,500, respectively. At the same time, nurses who spend most of their time in leadership or management roles reported the highest earnings, a median $80,000, while nurses involved in case management reported a median salary of $60,000. Finally, nurses whose main day-to-day role is patient care reported a median salary of $65,000. Number of Respondents: 249 Overall Median Salary: $70,000
