Nurses
Nurses are the backbone of every hospital, yet they're leaving the bedside at record rates. This page tracks nursing turnover, travel-nurse reliance, and satisfaction across the U.S. — and asks whether the same systems paying their executives the most are the ones losing nurses the fastest.
Turnover, travel nurses & satisfaction (2018–2023)
All three indicators moved together through the pandemic: turnover and travel-nurse reliance spiked while satisfaction collapsed. Turnover has since eased, but satisfaction has not recovered.
- RN turnover
- Travel-nurse share
- Nurse satisfaction
Does high CEO pay track nursing turnover?
Nonprofit hospital CEO compensation (indexed, 2018 = 100) rose steadily through the very years nursing turnover spiked. The lines don't move in lockstep — but executive pay kept climbing regardless of the workforce crisis underneath it.
- RN turnover
- CEO comp index (2018=100)
Highest-paid hospital CEOs (from our 990 data)
The systems at the top of the compensation table — drawn from the IRS Form 990 filings in this dashboard — are the natural place to look for the link between executive pay and frontline staffing strain.
What the data shows
A clean per-hospital correlation between CEO pay and nursing turnover isn't publishable from public data alone — hospitals don't report turnover line-by-line, and travel-nurse use is buried in expense categories. But three signals point the same way:
- The pay ratio widened as turnover rose. The CEO-to-nurse pay ratio grew from 23:1 (2005) to 44:1 (2015) and keeps climbing — the same span over which nursing turnover trended up.
- Travel nurses are a symptom of turnover. Hospitals turn to travel staff (at 2–3× the cost) precisely when they can't retain permanent nurses — so travel-nurse share is a trailing indicator of turnover.
- Executive pay kept rising through the crisis. While turnover hit 27% and satisfaction fell to 63%, CEO compensation climbed uninterrupted — suggesting the reward structure at the top is insulated from the staffing failures below.
The honest read: high CEO compensation doesn't cause turnover directly, but the two move in a system where resources flowing to the top aren't reaching the bedside — and patients pay for it in both staffing gaps and higher costs.
Methodology & sources
RN turnover — Annual bedside RN turnover rate from the NSI Nursing Solutions Inc. National Healthcare Retention & RN Staffing Report (2022–2024 editions). Turnover measures the % of hospital RNs who left their job in the prior 12 months.
Travel-nurse share — Approximate share of hospital nursing staffing filled by travel/contract RNs, from NSI and AMN Healthcare workforce reports. Peaked near 9% during the 2021 COVID surge.
Nurse satisfaction — % of nurses reporting satisfaction with being a nurse, from the AMN Healthcare Annual Survey of Nurses (2018–2023 editions).
CEO compensation index — Nonprofit hospital CEO pay indexed to 2018 = 100, estimated from the long-run growth trend in Jenkins et al. (PLOS ONE, 2024) and Modern Healthcare / Merritt Hawkins compensation surveys. Indexed (not absolute dollars) to avoid overstating precision.
CEO-to-nurse pay ratio — 23:1 (2005) → 44:1 (2015), from Jenkins et al., already cited on this dashboard's home page.
Disclaimer: For educational and informational purposes only. This dashboard aggregates publicly available data from IRS Form 990 filings and third-party sources; figures may be incomplete, estimated, or out of date. Nothing here constitutes legal, financial, tax, or medical advice, or an endorsement or judgment of any organization or individual. Always verify with official filings and qualified professionals before relying on any figure.