As much as doing good to society is important, you can't do much good if there isn't food on the table, a roof over your head, and clothes on your back. Keep in mind though, that these are the current salaries, they are going to go up in the near future (within 2 years at max) due to the nursing shortage.
Let's start with Certified Nursing Aides. CNAs are usually paid by the hour and their median hourly earnings were $10.67. The lowest 10% earned $7.78 and the highest 10% earned $14.99 an hour. There is variation among the various places of employment for CNAs. The highest paid workplace is the local government with the lowest paid being community care facilities.
Moving on to Licensed Practical and Vocational Nurses (LPN and LVN). Their median annual earnings were $36,550, the bottom 10% earned $26,380 and the top 10% earned $50,480. The highest paid place of work for LPNs and LVNs were employment services and the worst paid place of work was physician offices.
Finally, Registered Nurses (RN) had median annual earnings of $57,280. The lowest 10% earned less than $40,250 and the highest 10% earned more than $83,440. In order of highest paid to lowest places of work were: employment services, hospitals, home healthcare services, physician offices, and nursing care facilities.
There is a very large variation of the salaries for RNs because there are quite a few different levels in which a nurse is still considered an RN. An RN with an Associate's (ADN) degree, a Bachelor's (BSN) degree, or a Master's (MSN) degree all come under the umbrella term Registered Nurse. Hence, if you are looking to earn in the highest 10% of the RN salaries it is a good idea to go for an MSN rather than an ADN.
Overall, these wages and salaries are bound to increase as the scenario for nursing worsens. Also, depending on what state you are in you may get much higher or lower than these figures, for more information on specific states take a look at our "By State" section.
All Earnings Data from: Bureau of Labor Services Occupational Outlook Handbook
