Income Percentiles by Occupation and Education Level

Registered Nurses

Total Income to Compare: $

Income Percentile Results

Total Income of $55,000 ranks between the 20.6th and 33th percentiles for all education levels. These results were estimated off of 3,195,577 Registered Nurses.

50th Percentile (Median) Income for any Education Level: $79,320
75th Percentile: $104,046
95th Percentile: $166,613
99th Percentile: $275,572

See Similar Occupations

Income Percentile Stats

  • To be in the top 1% for this age range, your household would need an income of $275,572 per year. This would include salary, investments, and any business income.
  • To be in the top 5% for this age range, your household would need an income of $166,613 per year. This would include salary, investments, and any business income.

Income of Registered Nurses by Highest Education Level

Total Income of $55,000 ranks for education levels:
  • Compared to Doctoral degree holders this ranks between the 9.1th and 13.6th percentiles.
  • Compared to Professional degree beyond a Bachelor's degree holders this ranks between the 14.4th and 21.8th percentiles.
  • Compared to Master's degree holders this ranks between the 9.6th and 15.4th percentiles.
  • Compared to Bachelor's degree holders this ranks between the 18.9th and 32.3th percentiles.
  • Compared to HS Diploma / GED degree holders this ranks between the 35.9th and 48th percentiles.

Income Percentile Distribution by Education Level

Highest Level of Education for Registered Nurses:
  • Other (N/A or Less than HS): 0.6%
  • HS Diploma / GED: 1.2%
  • Associates Degree and Some College: 29.1%
  • Bachelors Degree: 50.1%
  • Masters Degree: 15.5%
  • Professional Degree beyond a Bachelors: 2.3%
  • Doctoral Degree (PHd) : 1.2%

Most Common Bachelors Degree Majors

  • For Medical and Health Sciences and Services undergraduate majors this income ranks between the 17.9th and 31.3th percentiles.
  • For Business undergraduate majors this income ranks between the 21.4th and 34.1th percentiles.
  • For Biology and Life Sciences undergraduate majors this income ranks between the 22.9th and 40.6th percentiles.
  • For Psychology undergraduate majors this income ranks between the 27.1th and 39.9th percentiles.
  • For Education Administration and Teaching undergraduate majors this income ranks between the 21.6th and 34.1th percentiles.
  • For Social Sciences undergraduate majors this income ranks between the 21.1th and 31.1th percentiles.
  • For Physical Sciences undergraduate majors this income ranks between the 18.7th and 30.5th percentiles.
  • For Communications undergraduate majors this income ranks between the 23.2th and 38.1th percentiles.
  • For Fine Arts undergraduate majors this income ranks between the 19.4th and 32.7th percentiles.
  • For Physical Fitness, Parks, Recreation, and Leisure undergraduate majors this income ranks between the 28.5th and 45.9th percentiles.
Note: The source data only records undergraduate degree majors, even if a person continues to study.

Treemap of Undergraduate Majors

Methodology and Assumptions

This data was sourced from the person-level data recorded by the American Communities Survey. The version of the survey used was the most recent 5 year revision for data recorded from 2017-2022. These results represent 3,195,577 Registered Nurses. The occupation code that was used to generate these results e was 3130 to read more about the occupation codes that the ACS and Census use. These results were generated in R using raw data from the ACS and precalculated in a batch. This data includes all individual income for the survey respondent, so some of the people may have a wage job as well as other income sources. I did not limit to wage income, because many occupations have high portions of entrepreneurs (CEOs, doctors, tradespeople).

Exclusions and Filters Applied:
  • Filtered for people who reported working at least 30 hours a week.
  • High School Graduates and GED graduates were original 2 separate categories that I combined.
  • Anything below High School Graduates is combined into a separate category. I did not include these on the page for space reason but I can.
  • The data has data for associate degree holders and some college and these values are mostly in between the high school and bachelors samples. There doesn't seem to be a significant difference between some college and an associates degree.
  • All ages are included and not separated. I did some initial testing and there is a difference if the data is split out by age, but I wasn't able to consolidate the data into a way that would make it fast to interact with and avoid being too complicated.
  • There may be some confusion around a masters degree vs a professional degree beyond a masters. This was a distinction made in the original raw data that I decided to keep. Because the data is collected by polling people individually, some of the respondents may have mixed up the difference depending on how they phrased their response.
    • Masters Degree : MBA, Masters in Something
    • Professional Degree beyond a Bachelors Degree: Law Degree, Medical School, generally these degrees are credentials for specific careers.
    • Doctoral Degree: PHd