The new year is now a quarter of the way finished, daylight savings time has shifted most people’s clocks ahead an hour and travel RN wages in 2023 continue to trend down for the third consecutive month. However, healthcare travel pay for nurses still offers a lucrative alternative compared to the wages of staff nurses. Although staffing predictions indicate that travel nurse wages will stabilize, healthcare systems in many states still rely on travelers to fill staffing gaps, keeping demand steady. Wages may have tumbled in 39 states in March, but healthcare travel pay remains above pre-pandemic amounts.

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States With Wage Increases

Only five states posted gains in travel RN wages in March 2023, up one compared to February 2023 wages. It’s also an improvement over wage trends in March 2022, when all 50 states reported a drop in travel nurse pay. Last month, the most significant gain didn’t even break 2%, while Wyoming posted a substantial increase of 5.2% this month.

Travel nurse wages dropped 1.7% in Wyoming in February after increasing by 3% in January and decreasing by 2.5% in December 2022. This continual shift demonstrates that some states still have frequent fluctuations, though in much smaller increments. Wyoming’s jump of 5.2% in March is much larger than the norm of late. The only other increase near this amount recently occurred in January 2023, when Utah posted a rise of 5.9%. This time last year, Wyoming’s travel nurse wages dropped 14.5%, and average weekly pay was $369 less than it is this month. 

States With Wage Decreases

Of the 39 states with travel wage drops in March, Pennsylvania had the most significant at 10%. A drop of this magnitude hasn’t occurred since September 2022, when five states posted decreases between 10% and 15.4%, with Maryland coming out on top.

March marks the third month Pennsylvania has seen travel RN wages drop in 2023. The state recorded decreases of 4.3% in February and 1.9% in January but did see a 1% increase in December 2022. However, this month’s double-digit drop isn’t new to Pennsylvania, which decreased 16.3% this time last year. Despite these significant declines, Pennsylvania’s travel RN pay in March 2023 is only $116 per week lower than in March 2022.

States Where Wages Stayed the Same

The remaining six states had fluctuations of less than 1%, resulting in relatively small changes in pay and placing them on the unchanged list. However, Arkansas was the only one of these six with a slight increase of 0.5%. The small spike caused an increase of $11 per week in pay. On the flip side, Washington’s travel RN wages dropped 0.9%, barely missing being placed on the decreased list. The difference in pay amounted to $25 less per week.

Average salary data based on travel RN jobs posted on Vivian Health during the complete month of March compared to the jobs posted during the complete month of February 2023.

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