Nursing Workforce by the Numbers: Pay, Jobs and Injury Rates

The U.S. had 3,379,720 registered nurses in May 2025, earning a median $97,550 a year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Add 648,410 licensed practical and vocational nurses and 323,040 nurse practitioners, and these three roles held 4,351,170 jobs. The places many nurses work are also risky: private hospitals reported 5.1 injury and illness cases per 100 full-time workers in 2024, more than twice the private-industry rate.

This page pulls the latest official figures into one place, shows how we computed each share, and explains what the numbers mean for a nurse's family finances.

What are the key findings?

1. Registered nurses are the largest group. BLS counted 3,379,720 RN jobs in May 2025, about 77.7% of the three roles combined.
2. Pay varies widely by role. In May 2025, the median annual wage was $132,300 for nurse practitioners, $97,550 for registered nurses and $64,400 for LPNs and LVNs.
3. Hospitals and nursing homes report more injuries. In 2024, private general medical and surgical hospitals had 5.1 recordable cases per 100 full-time workers, and skilled nursing facilities had 6.3, versus 2.3 for all private industry.
4. RNs face more violence at work. Over 2023–2024, registered nurses had 12.9 days-away-from-work cases caused by violent acts per 10,000 full-time workers, about five times the 2.6 rate for all occupations.
5. Nurse practitioner jobs are projected to grow fastest. BLS projects nurse practitioner employment to grow 41% from 2025 to 2035, compared with 6% for registered nurses.

How many nurses are there, and what do they earn?

There were 4,351,170 jobs across these three nursing roles in May 2025. The table shows the national estimates from the BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) program for each.

Source: BLS OEWS Profiles, May 2025, for registered nurses, LPNs and LVNs and nurse practitioners.

The spread inside each role is wide. A registered nurse at the 90th percentile earned about twice as much as one at the 10th percentile, which is why a single "nurse salary" is a poor guide for budgeting.

Where do nurses work?

Hospitals employ more than half of all registered nurses, while LPNs work most often in skilled nursing facilities and nurse practitioners in physician offices.

The five states with the most jobs in each role in May 2025 were:

How often are nurses injured on the job?

Hospitals and skilled nursing facilities report injury and illness rates well above the private-industry average, while home health care services and physician offices report rates below it. These industry rates cover all workers in each industry, not only nurses. In its January 2026 release, BLS reported that the health care and social assistance sector's rate fell to 3.4 cases per 100 full-time workers in 2024, from 3.6 in 2023. It was still above the 2.3 rate for all private industry.

Source: BLS Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses (SOII), Table 1, 2024.

Occupation-level data tell a similar story. The BLS publishes these as two-year annualized rates per 10,000 full-time workers in private industry.

Source: BLS SOII Table R100, 2023–2024. "Not published" means the BLS marked the figure as not meeting its publication guidelines.

How fast is nursing employment growing?

All three roles are projected to add jobs, but at very different speeds. The BLS Employment Projections program, published in the Occupational Outlook Handbook, projects:

The projections program uses different methods from OEWS, so its employment counts don't match the OEWS job counts above.

What do these numbers mean for a nurse's life insurance?

A nursing income is often what a household runs on, and it is worth protecting. If a family relies on a median RN salary of $97,550, replacing even a few years of it takes a large sum. Our guide to how much life insurance you need walks through the math, and the life insurance calculator can help you run your own numbers.

Most nurses get some coverage at work, but it's often a flat amount or a multiple of salary, and it usually ends or has to be converted when you change jobs. Read is hospital life insurance enough? before you rely on it alone.

The injury data matter too, but in a different way. Life insurance pays when you die. It doesn't replace your paycheck while you recover from a back injury or an assault on the unit. Workers' compensation and disability coverage handle those risks, and our comparison of workers' comp death benefits and life insurance explains how the two fit together. For an overview of coverage built around your profession, start with life insurance for nurses or visit the nurses hub.

Methodology

We used only published U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and reported each figure exactly as BLS publishes it.

• Employment and wages: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 national estimates, released May 15, 2026, taken from the OEWS Profiles pages for SOC codes 29-1141, 29-2061 and 29-1171. BLS says the OEWS survey covers wage and salary workers in nonfarm establishments and leaves out the self-employed. The median is the wage at which half of workers earn more and half earn less.
• Industry injury rates: BLS Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses, Table 1, calendar year 2024, released January 22, 2026. Rates are cases per 100 full-time equivalent workers, which BLS computes as cases times 200,000, divided by total hours worked. The 200,000 hours equal 100 employees working 40 hours a week for 50 weeks, as described on the BLS incidence rate page.
• Occupation injury rates: BLS SOII Table R100, private industry, 2023–2024. These are annualized two-year rates per 10,000 full-time workers for cases with days away from work, broken out by the event that caused the case.
• Projections: BLS Employment Projections for 2025 to 2035, as shown in the Occupational Outlook Handbook pages for each occupation.
• Our calculations: The 4,351,170 total is the sum of the three OEWS employment estimates, and the 77.7% RN share divides 3,379,720 by that total. Each industry share divides the stated figure by the occupation's OEWS employment and rounds to one decimal. For example, 1,902,960 hospital RNs divided by 3,379,720 RNs is 56.3%. "About five times" compares the 12.9 and 2.6 violence rates, "more than double" compares hospitals' 5.1 rate with 2.3 for private industry, and "about twice" compares the RN 90th percentile wage ($137,470) with the 10th percentile ($68,940).
• Limits: SOII industry rates cover all workers in each industry, not only nurses, and SOII injury rates by occupation cover private industry only. OEWS and Employment Projections use different methods, so their counts differ. Figures are estimates with sampling error, and BLS will update them with new releases. The next SOII release, covering 2025, is scheduled for November 18, 2026.

How to cite this data

Suggested citation: Your Insurance Consultants, "Nursing Workforce by the Numbers: Pay, Jobs and Injury Rates," reviewed September 30, 2026, using U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics OEWS (May 2025) and SOII (2023–2024) data.