Health Affairs

Health Affairs, doi: 10.1377/hlthaff.28.2.w326 (Published online February 10, 2009) © 2009 by Project HOPE	New Online   Getting Health Reform Done   After the State of the Union   Incremental Reform   E-Health in Developing World   Most-Read Articles in 2009

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California's Minimum-Nurse-Staffing Legislation And Nurses' Wages

Barbara Mark ^1*, David W. Harless ², Joanne Spetz ³

¹ Barbara Mark is a professor in the School of Nursing at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
² David Harless is a professor of economics at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond.
³ Joanne Spetz is an associate professor of nursing at the University of California, San Francisco.

^*Corresponding author.

Abstract

In 2004, California became the first state to implement minimum-nurse-staffing ratios in acute care hospitals. We examined the wages of registered nurses (RNs) before and after the legislation was enacted. Using four data sets--the National Sample Survey of Registered Nurses, the Current Population Survey, the National Compensation Survey, and the Occupational Employment Statistics Survey--we found that from 2000 through 2006, RNs in California metropolitan areas experienced real wage growth as much as twelve percentage points higher than the growth in the wages of nurses employed in metropolitan areas outside of California. [Health Affairs 28, no. 2 (2009): w326-w334 (published online 10 February 2009; 10.1377/hlthaff.28.2.w326)]

Key Words: Business Of Health, Health Reform, Hospitals, Legal/Regulatory Issues, Managed Care - Medicare, Nurses, State/Local Issues - California

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