Average Nurse Salary and Wages by State

Tanya Freedman, CEO Connetics USA International Nurse Recruitment Agency: Can you explain how different locations or counties have different prevailing wages?

Denise Gavica Perez, Immigration Lawyer: Well, it's all based on the standard of living, it's all based on the city, if it's in a rural area versus a more commercial area,it's based on just the location and that's why you have those four level wages.

And the Department of Labor looks at the specific county, where the where the job site is located, and they select the appropriate wage. But that's, there's so many wages, there's no way that we could know off the top of our head because there's so many different cities and counties, etc.

Tanya: And that's something that's really interesting and can be that many nurses don't realize is that they are just so the US is so big, that it's not like every nurse gets the same wage, you find two hospitals that are not that far from each other where nurses get different
wages.

Denise: Well, that's the Department of Labor's responsibility to make sure that the appropriate wage is being offered. That's the whole purpose of the prevailing wage determination to begin with. So they take five months in order to select the appropriate wage so that foreign nationals are not underpaid. So that they're paid at least the appropriate wage for those who are working within a specific location.

So for example, I live in Miami. And if I was going to work as a registered nurse at Baptist Hospital here in Miami, the government would go through the the minimum requirements that Baptist Hospital would submit to them, they would look up a specific county, they been the Department of Labor, and the Department of Labor would say, Well, based on where she's working, or where she intends to work, this is the appropriate salary level two, okay, and then they come back and they send that the employer and official determination that stamped endorsed by the Department of Labor, it cannot be manipulated, it cannot be prepared by anyone else. It's an official determination that has a code attached to it. And then that way, at least the nurse knows that they're getting the correct salary, that they're being offered the right wage. And employer cannot offer a wage below the prevailing wage.

So if in Miami, the Department of Labor comes back with a prevailing wage of let's say, I don't know $30 an hour, and they offer me $35 an hour, then they beam the employer, then it's perfectly aligned with the prevailing wage determination issued by the Department of Labor. However, they offer me $22 An hour and the prevailing wage comes back at 30, then they're not in compliance, the hospital will not be able to file a petition on my behalf.

Tanya: Okay, so really important for any international nurse to understand it, but as Denise said, that piece of it, the prevailing wage and posting is just for you to know what it is understand how it works. But really, it's more just from the timing perspective, because the question that an international nurse might ask is, have you already done that because that means that we can move to the next stage which is the filing.