A registered nurse salary is not a set amount that you find for all nurses within the United States. What you may get can depend on your education, the level you reached, if you got a degree, what passed experience you have and whether or not you specialized in a specific area of nursing. So, what can you expect to be paid? Well, remember that nursing salaries are also governed by where you live and work, the demand for nurses and for whom you work.

In recent years in the United States, the median for a nurse's annual wages ran at around $62,450 US on average. The majority of those who had some experience and were in the middle of their careers ranged between $51,640 US and $76,570 US annually, accounting for at least fifty percent of nursing staff across the country. At the lower end of the scale, those with limited experience or those who were just starting out usually earned up to $43,410 US per year, but this only covers the lower ten percent of nurses. Those with the most experience got the best benefits for a nursing practitioner, earning on average over $92,240 US annually, again only being something that ten percent of nurses earned. However, this did not account for those in other areas of the medical industry. So, what do those people earn?

In 2010, the earnings of nurses who worked through nurse banks or nursing employment agencies ranged from the basic average compensation to as high as $68,160/year. General surgical and medical hospitals paid on average close to $63,880 annually, whereas nurses who worked in physicians' offices got almost $4000 US less, earning up to about $59,210. Nurses who were hired by health care services for in-home nursing fared worse with only up to $58,740/year. The worst area within the industry for nursing earnings was in the special care facilities, where the average salary ran around $57,060.

Generally the salaries earned by nursing professionals were substantially higher than the averages for those who worked in specialized areas of nursing. Not only were nurses schedules for work more flexible, but their compensation in the form of child care benefits, bonuses and further training benefits was better. However, only about twenty-one percent of them were unionized as RNs and had any protective coverage from unionized contracts, unlike those in other sectors of the industry. In fact, what nurses expect to earn in specialized areas include the following salaries:

1. $135,000 (anesthetic specialty)

2. $95,000 (research)

3. $95,000 (psychiatry)

4. $84,000 (midwifery)

5. $81,000 (pediatric endocrinology)

6. $81,000 (orthopedics)

7. $78,000 (practitioner level)

8. $76,000 (clinical specialization)

9. $75,000 ( gerontology)

10. $74,000 (neonatal)

Getting your ideal salary as a nurse, especially after getting your qualifications can vary substantially. Even after you have advanced with further training and experience, the salaries are well worth the time and effort spent in bettering yourself as a nurse by getting into specialized areas. Though it may take many more years of study to get there, the benefits to your career are substantial. Not only can you enjoy protected employment and general employment benefits, but you stand to make a livable and comfortable income to support not just yourself, but even a future family.