Should NYC Nurses Earn $200k? Unions Say Yes.

Maybe you’ve heard that New York City nurses went on strike last week to demand better contracts at some of the state’s top hospitals. Talks between the two sides quickly broke down.

Roughly 15,000 nurses walked off the job on Jan. 12, prompting the hospitals to bring on thousands of temporary workers to keep operations running.

“Nurses stand ready to bargain to reach fair contracts and end the strike,” the union said in a statement ahead of the talks. “Nurses will continue to picket and strike until tentative agreements are reached with the hospitals.”

The union held one bargaining session with each of the three hospital systems last week, but those hourslong meetings ended with little progress and no plans for further talks.

Talks did resume today, though it sounds like representatives for the hospital didn’t show up until later in the afternoon.

In any case, the nurses are demanding all sorts of things as part of the negotiation but the NY Times reports the leading issue is money. Nurses in New York already make a lot more than nurses in most of the country but now they are asking for a raise that would bring their salaries up to around $200k.

The three hospital systems affected by the strike said their nurses on average make about $160,000 a year and are seeking raises that could propel nurses’ salaries on average past $200,000, according to the hospitals.

One hospital system, Mount Sinai, said that the financial demands originally made by the nurses’ union, known as NYSNA, would increase average pay to $275,000, an assertion that the union disputed.

“From the very start, these negotiations have been primarily about NYSNA’s financial demands, plain and simple,” said Marc Kramer, the lead negotiator for Mount Sinai Hospital and the president of the League of Voluntary Hospitals and Homes of New York.

Since the start of the strike, nurses on the picket line and their union leaders have tended to minimize pay as a major reason for the labor action, instead highlighting other demands.

Their pay is the major demand and the sticking point in the negotiations but they don’t want to focus on that, probably because they know $200k sounds like a lot of money to most people. It’s a big ask given that these same nurses already make a lot more than nurses in other parts of the country.

Nurse practitioners in New York earn more than their counterparts in every city in the country with the exception of Bellevue, Wash., according to data compiled by Indeed, the online job site. Indeed shows nursing jobs in New York pay about $142,000 a year, about 9 percent higher than the national average of about $130,000.

Nationally, the median annual pay for registered nurses was $93,600 in 2024, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

New York City nurses in their last contract secured a 7 percent raise in 2023, 6 percent the following year and 5 percent in 2025.

The bottom line is that the nurses want 10% raises per year which would get them to $200k salaries by 2028. The hospitals are offering $4500 per year, which can be salary or other benefits. That’s a big gap and the Times notes that “In interviews, nurses have called that offer unrealistically low or insulting.” 

It might be insulting if they a) didn’t already make more than nearly all nurses in the country and b) didn’t just get big raises three years in a row. But given those two facts, the demand for 10% raises seems like a bit much. 

Not surprisingly, NYC’s socialist mayor is siding with the nurses (as is fellow socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders).

📢 Mamdani and Sanders join NYC nurses on picket line as strike enters 2nd week with no end in sight https://t.co/MrnUiVjqZ7

🎤 @winsjuliet reports

📸 Juliet Papa, Kara McCurdy and Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office pic.twitter.com/wz0tmvPZ4f

— 1010 WINS on 92.3 FM (@1010WINS) January 20, 2026

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