With tax season comfortably in the rear-view mirror for most, it’s the perfect time to assess your current financial situation. Thanks to the more than 9,000 nurse practitioners and physician assistants who participated in our second annual salary survey (nearly twice as many as last year), you can see how your income compares with that of your peers. We hope, you will be pleased with the result. If not, find a male dermatology PA with 20 or more years of experience working at an urban hospital in the West — he should be able to float you a loan.
Practice area
Family/adult medicine practitioners represented the most common practice area between both NP (Table 1) and PA (Table 2) respondents. In a departure from last year, geriatric medicine appeared among the top five NP practice areas, replacing obstetrics/gynecology. The PA list remained unchanged.
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Experience
As we saw last year, experience has little bearing on salary among NPs beyond the first five years of practice (Table 3). More experienced PAs see a slightly larger bump in income as their careers progress (Table 4).
Sex
The majority of NP and PA respondents were once again women (92.1% and 66.2%, respectively). Men continue to outearn women across the board. The average male NP earned $100,316 last year, compared with $87,393 for a female. This discrepancy was even more pronounced for PAs: Men earned $105,902 on average, whereas women earned $89,728.
Geographic region
Using the U.S. Census Bureau’s regional designations, the South was heavily represented among survey respondents (Figures 1 and 2). Average salaries had only slight regional variance, particularly among PAs.
