Nurses in Honolulu make a median of $127,020 a year. After housing and taxes, many of them barely get by. Hawaii is pushing out its own nurses and its own people.
These rates are from October 2024, when this was first written. Pay changes every year, so check current rates in Map My Pay.
What nurses there keep
Six figures sounds great. Here’s what’s left after the biggest bill.
If you buy
- The median home price is $791,520.
- The mortgage is $5,252 a month.
- Take-home pay after taxes is $90,575 a year.
- After the mortgage and taxes, you have $27,551 left a year. That’s $2,296 a month.
If you rent
- Rent is $3,300 a month, or $39,600 a year.
- After rent and taxes, you have $50,975 left a year. That’s $4,248 a month.
Even with six figures, nurses there have a hard time. And that’s before food, gas or anything else.
Not enough nurses
The Hawaii State Center for Nursing’s 2022 Nursing Workforce Report says Hawaii is short on nurses. It expects to be 2,200 nurses short by 2027. A big reason is that nurses can’t afford to live there.
That hits patient care hard:
- Each nurse has more patients than California law would allow.
- More nurses are burned out.
- Turnover is over 20% at some hospitals.
- Patients are not doing as well.
The cost to Native Hawaiians
This part breaks my heart. A story from AsAmNews says that for the first time, most Native Hawaiians don’t live in Hawaii anymore. Families who have always lived there are leaving because it costs too much.
Living in Hawaii costs 84% more than living on the mainland. That’s close to double the price for everything. Homes cost three times more.
Many Native Hawaiians are moving to Las Vegas, where they can afford a home. People now call it the “9th island.” Picture having to leave your home, your culture and your family because you can’t afford to stay.
When even nurses making over $100,000 can’t afford to live there, something is very wrong. This isn’t just about money. People are being forced to leave their homeland, and that’s not okay.
Make a plan for your money
If you rent in Honolulu instead of buying, you save nearly $2,000 a month. Saving isn’t enough on its own, though. You also need to invest that money.
Over time, the stock market has grown about 10% a year, based on the S&P 500 average.
NorCal is a whole other story
Things look very different for nurses in Northern California. One of our followers will earn over $200,000 working less than 30 hours a week.
She can do that by being smart about when she picks up extra hours. In California, the law pays 1.5 times your rate after your 8th hour of work. That’s the power of a good plan and the right place.
Building wealth as a nurse isn’t about working more hours. It’s about working smart and picking the right place. That’s why we moved to Sacramento. I earn $103 an hour as a staff nurse there, and Monica earns $133 an hour as a per diem nurse. Read more about why California nursing is better.
California pays nurses a higher base rate, and each nurse has fewer patients. You get more chances for overtime and a better work-life balance. In some areas, housing costs less too.
To see how other cities stack up for nurses, check out the top cities for nurse pay in 2024.
Your next move
See what you’d take home, then make the move
Map My Pay shows what nurses take home after taxes and rent at 465+ hospitals and in 21,000+ cities. It’s the app I co-founded so you can compare cities before you pack a single box.
The Nurses to Riches Accelerator is the plan Monica and I used to go from $37 an hour in New York to $143 an hour in California: license, city, hospital, and what to do with the money after.
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Written by Jason, RN. I went from $37 an hour in New York to $143 an hour in California and paid off $128K of debt in under a year. I share our numbers in the Nurses to Riches newsletter and on YouTube.