Registered nurses looking to maximize their paychecks might want to head west. A new analysis finds California utterly dominating the national pay charts, locking down 22 of the 25 highest-paying U.S. metro areas for RNs. Leading the pack is the San Jose–Sunnyvale–Santa Clara metro, where registered nurses pull in a mean $189,880 a year, compared with a national mean of about $98,430. Between 2019 and 2024, RN wages climbed roughly 27% nationwide, but California’s coastal hubs are clearly playing in a different league.
How the ranking was built
The ranking comes from an analysis that stacked metro-level wage files against employment projections to track change from 2019 to 2024. According to the University of West Alabama, California claims 22 of the 25 highest-paying metro areas for registered nurses, and every metro in that top 25 pays at least 26% above the national mean.
Federal data behind the paychecks
The headline numbers are built on federal Occupational Employment and Wage…..