South Dakota nurses rank 51st in average pay
The nursing industry is under pressure in South Dakota as an aging population, fewer nursing students and an older workforce are combining to create staffing shortages.
But the state has an added challenge in filling open nursing positions — pay. National nursing studies show RNs in South Dakota earn less than their counterparts across the nation.
According to the American Nurses Association, South Dakota’s registered nurses have the lowest annual salary of any state and the District of Columbia, ranking 51st behind Mississippi, Alabama and Iowa.
The association reports that South Dakota’s 12,530 registered nurses received an average annual salary of $57,010, or $27.41 per hour. California’s RNs posted the highest compensation at $102,700, $49.37 per hour.
Health care officials say many factors contribute to South Dakota’s comparatively poor compensation levels for nursing, including the rural nature of the state, as well as low reimbursement rates to hospitals from Medicare, Medicaid and Indian Health Services.
Still, they are at a loss to explain why those same factors are not at play to the same extent in surrounding states.
While the average RN salary in Iowa is comparable at $57,930, Nebraska nurses receive an average of $62,210 per year. North Dakota nurses make $63,140 annually, and, in Minnesota, nurses earn $77,540 per year, the association reports.
In South Dakota, the number of nurses joining the work force — either as recent graduates or transferring from another state — has not kept pace with the number leaving in recent years. In 2016, the net loss was 1,738. That was up substantially from the 930 net loss the year before, according to the South Dakota Department of Health’s Board of Nursing.
Nurses leave the profession due to retirement, a change of career or a move out of state. Some simply choose not to renew their RN licenses.
Compounding the shortages, enrollment in South Dakota’s eight nursing programs has declined in recent years.
According to the South Dakota Board of Nursing’s 2017 report on nursing education programs, last year a total of 308 LPNs and 306 associate degree RNs were enrolled in colleges and universities, a decrease of 103 students from the previous year. A total of 710 students graduated from the LPN and RN programs in 2017, 67 less than in 2016, the report stated.
While reasonable tuition rates for South Dakota’s nursing schools are attracting out-of-state students, Carrie Clausen-Hanson, a board member of the South Dakota Nurses Association, said low pay makes it difficult to draw faculty and accounts for some of the declining enrollment numbers in the state.
“Faculty pay, teacher’s pay, nursing pay, there is not a lot of difference,” she said. “Part of why we have trouble with enrollments in our nursing schools is they can’t find faculty. And a lot of it is due to pay.”
Clausen-Hanson, who worked as a registered nurse in South Dakota for 35 years and taught at Presentation College, said many of her students who graduated with associate’s degrees in nursing were landing jobs that paid more than her faculty position.
Nationally, nursing school enrollments also are being limited by a lack of qualified faculty and budget restraints. Almost two-thirds of the nursing schools responding to an American Association of Colleges of Nursing survey cited a shortage of faculty and/or clinical preceptors as a limiting factor for increasing enrollment.
AACN reported a 3.6 percent enrollment increase in entry-level baccalaureate programs in nursing in 2016. This increase is not sufficient to meet the projected demand for nursing services, including the need for more nurse faculty, researchers and primary care providers….. (Readmore)