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Average Annual Salaries by State
Find a list of Survey Questions and Responses, including average salaries by city, here.
Note on survey methods and report: The 2009 National Salary and Workplace Survey of Nurse Practitioners was conducted online through a third-party survey administrator between June 22 and October 5, 2009. More than 6,000 people took the survey, resulting in 5,908 usable responses. Respondents were required to answer every question, but they were not presented with irrelevant questions (e.g., they were not asked, "What's your part-time hourly rate?" if they earlier indicated that they work full time). For the first time, we offer both average and median figures for monetary values. For comparison purposes, we use only averages, because we have no median values from past surveys.
All survey questions, along with the percentage of responses for each answer choice and the number of respondents, can be found in this table of survey questions and responses. The table also provides average and median salaries for each state and select cities.
When we set out to collect and tabulate data for the 2009 National Salary and Workplace Survey of Nurse Practitioners, we had more than the typical curiosity about the results. Past surveys showed nurse practitioner compensation steadily growing along with the larger economy. The last survey, in 2007, showed an 8.8% rise in salaries over the previous 2 years.
This time, all bets were off. The Great Recession officially began in December 2007, just 2 months after data collection ended for our last survey. Between that time and October 2009, when data collection for this survey ended, 8.2 million U.S. workers lost their jobs, leaving 15.7 million residents unemployed. The unemployment rate rose to 10.2% from 4.9%, and more than 5.6 million of those unemployed in October 2009 had been out of work for 27 weeks or longer; 2.4 million more had stopped looking for a job. Even more - 9.3 million - managed to hang on to a job but were working less than full time because of cutbacks in hours or inability to find a full-time position. And that was during the so-called recovery. (Statistics are from the U.S. Dept. of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics, available at www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf.)
But while overall employment measures looked bleak, healthcare jobs appeared strong. All other employment categories showed job losses since the beginning of the recession, but healthcare actually added almost 600,000 positions.
This happier job situation in healthcare was borne out by data from the 2009 National Salary and Workplace Survey of Nurse Practitioners. The average annual salary for a nurse practitioner rose by 10% in the past 2 years - to $89,579 (median $85,000) in 2009 from $81,397 at the end of 2007.
Gains in part-time wages were even greater percentagewise: The average part-time hourly wage for an NP rose 13.7%, to $45.85 (median $42.00) in 2009 from $40.32 in 2007 (Table 1 and Table 2).
Still, NPs didn't completely escape the recession. For the first time, we asked a classic question of a bad economy: "Are you better off than you were 2 years ago?" Just over a quarter of respondents (26%) said they were "about the same," and 10% said "no." Some of those responding "no" cited job insecurity, pay freezes and underemployment.
Lynn Schiff, NP, who owns a Minnesota-based recruitment firm specializing in placing NPs in jobs around the country, has noticed the effect of the recession on nurse practitioners. "For the first time in well over 10 years, we began hearing from NPs who were downsized out of their positions," Schiff told ADVANCE.
Still, 64% of respondents indicated that they are better off since our last survey. Of these, 77% indicated that they're making a higher salary, and 30% report receiving more employer benefits. As a reminder that it's not only about money, 67% said they have greater job satisfaction, and 20% said they've benefited from improved NP laws and regulations. Almost unchanged from 2007, 62% of respondents said they believe there are sufficient and appropriate job opportunities for nurse practitioners.
Most Lucrative Settings
An average salary or wage doesn't tell the whole story. For nurse practitioners, practice setting is the biggest determinant of pay - with almost $30,000 separating the annual compensation for the most and least lucrative practice settings (Table 3).
After 10 years in the five highest paying NP practice settings, hospital and surgery settings dropped to places six and eight, respectively. They've been replaced by mental health settings (average salary $100,140; median $92,345) and, new to the survey this year, house calls (average $98,915; median $85,500). Repeating their appearance in the top five are aesthetics/skin care practices (average $105,152; median $100,000), emergency departments (average $104,369; median $100,000) and neonatal units (average $95,280; median $94,000).
Compensation for NPs in aesthetics and mental health settings grew faster than for other settings - each by about 20%. In contrast, nurse practitioners in emergency departments received almost the average 10% raise, and those in neonatal units made a mere 1.3% more than in 2007.
None of the most lucrative settings employs more than 5% of nurse practitioners. Family practice, which employs 23% of NPs, records an average salary increase of about 9%, as does internal medicine, the next most common practice setting.
Schiff noted an increasing number of nurse practitioner positions in subspecialty clinic settings, such as orthopedics, neurosurgery and cardiothoracic surgery. She suspects that the demand for psychiatric-mental health NPs has grown as a result of a shortage of psychiatrists.
"We always have between one and four openings for NPs in this specialty, and the salaries have increased nicely," she commented.
A relatively new setting for NPs is with agencies that contract with health insurance companies. Nurse practitioner duties range from history taking to monthly visits in the patient's home, assisted living facility or nursing home. "NPs are being paid by the case or by the hour, depending on which company they work with," Schiff explained.
As in the past, educational settings were the least lucrative for nurse practitioners. In college health, 12-month positions paid an annual average of $81,981 (median $80,000), while 9-month positions paid $63,452 (median $61,728). Elementary and secondary school NPs made $76,965 on average (median $78,000). And the 3% of NPs whose primary position is teaching made an average of $81,552 (median $76,500), a 19% increase over 2007.
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