As part of the build-up for U.S. National Nurses Week (which begins on May 6, 2017) the personal-finance website WalletHub has released a detailed report on 2017’s Best & Worst States for Nurses. U.S. National Nurses Week has a different theme each year; for 2017 it is “Nursing: the Balance of Mind, Body, and Spirit.” The broad aim of the week is to raise awareness of the important role nurses play in society.
With the new analysis into the U.S. states offering the best and worse nursing care, the top ten best states are:
1 Wisconsin
2 New Mexico
3 Iowa
4 Texas
5 Colorado
6 North Dakota
7 Delaware
8 Utah
9 Arizona
10 Washington
At the other end of the spectrum, the worst states are:
42 Nevada
43 Georgia
44 Ohio
45 New Jersey
46 Alaska
47 Alabama
48 Louisiana
49 New York
50 Hawaii
51 District of Columbia
The ratings relate to a host of different measures. Taking the wages paid to nurses, for example, the state of Nevada has the highest annual mean wage for registered nurses at $80,182. This stands 1.5 times higher than in Hawaii, which records the lowest wage rate at $53,112. A second measure is the highest ratio of nurses to hospital beds. Here Vermont wins with 5.6, which is 2.4 times higher than in Wyoming, registering the lowest at 2.3.
To call out a final measure from the report, Florida has the highest projected share of the population aged 65 and older by year 2030, 27.08 percent, which is two times higher than in Utah, registering the lowest at 13.21 percent.
