Nursing Shortage Statistics in US 2026 | Key Facts

Quick Stats at a Glance

1. The State of the Nursing Shortage in 2026

Let’s not sugarcoat it — the United States has a nursing problem, and it isn’t going away quietly. The gap between the nurses this country needs and the nurses actually available continues to widen year after year, pushed along by an aging population, an aging workforce, and a pipeline that simply cannot produce graduates fast enough to keep up.

According to projections from the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), the national supply of all nursing staff in 2026 will account for only 91.94% of total demand — leaving an overall nursing shortage rate of 8.06% across the country. That might sound modest, but when you factor in the sheer scale of the US healthcare system, it translates into hundreds of thousands of unfilled roles, overworked bedside nurses, and patients whose care is being delayed or compromised every single day.

The shortage is not evenly distributed. Licensed practical nurses (LPNs) are in the deepest trouble, with a shortage rate approaching 20% in 2026, while registered nurses face a 10% shortfall nationally. Advanced Practice Registered Nurses (APRNs), by contrast, are in surplus — a small bright spot in an otherwise difficult picture.

Even with large nursing school licensure volumes, the US was still estimated to be over 500,000 nurses short in 2025, according to AAG Health’s analysis of healthcare staffing data. And projections from IntelyCare estimate that the nationwide shortage could swell to more than 250,000 RNs by 2030 if current trends hold.

2. Workforce by the Numbers

Current Size of the Nursing Workforce

The scale of the nursing workforce is staggering — nurses make up more than half of the entire US health workforce, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. But that impressive number masks a deeply uncomfortable reality: the workforce is aging at a pace the profession cannot absorb. The average US nurse is now 52 years old, and approximately one million RNs are aged 50 or older — meaning roughly one-third of the entire nursing workforce could reach retirement age within the next ten to fifteen years, per StatPearls/NIH.

That’s not a slow leak. That’s a cliff edge.

Gender Breakdown

• 86% of US nurses are women
• 14% are men

Nursing Roles & Demand Ranking

According to Monster’s 2025 Healthcare Market Report, nursing roles dominate the most in-demand healthcare jobs nationally:

• Registered Nurse (RN) — #1 most in-demand healthcare job (including travel, ICU, med-surg, ED, L&D)
• Licensed Practical/Vocational Nurse (LPN/LVN) — #4 overall
• Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) — #8 overall

3. Job Openings & Growth Projections

The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects 189,100 openings for registered nurses every single year through 2034 — not total, but per year. That’s a massive, sustained demand signal. And the growth doesn’t stop at staff nurse roles. Nurse Practitioner positions are projected to explode by 46% through 2033, creating more than 135,000 new NP jobs in under a decade.

The 2025 occupational data from BLS confirms something remarkable: 5 out of the 20 fastest-growing occupations in the entire country are in the nursing industry. This is a profession in demand by virtually every measure. The challenge isn’t whether nursing jobs exist — it’s whether there are enough qualified nurses to fill them.

4. Nursing Education & the Pipeline Problem

Even as the demand for nurses has surged, nursing schools have been unable to produce graduates at the pace needed. This is arguably the most structural part of the crisis — and the hardest to fix quickly.

Nursing School Capacity Stats

In 2024 alone, more than 80,000 qualified candidates were turned away from nursing programs across the United States — not because they weren’t capable, but because the schools didn’t have the faculty, clinical placement slots, or budget to take them. This figure has been climbing year over year: it was 65,000 in 2023, and 91,000 in 2021.

This isn’t a lack of interest in the profession. It’s a structural bottleneck at the education layer that feeds directly into shortages at the bedside. Faculty shortages create a cruel loop: nurses can’t become nurse educators without advanced degrees, advanced degrees take time, and meanwhile the shortage deepens.

The Faculty Problem

One reason nursing schools can’t expand is that they can’t hire enough nurse educators. The same aging trends affecting bedside nurses apply to faculty — and academic salaries often can’t compete with what hospitals are paying for clinical nurses. The result is a constrained pipeline that can’t respond quickly enough even when there is strong student demand.

5. Turnover, Burnout & Retention

Turnover and burnout aren’t just abstract policy concerns — they’re the engine driving the shortage in real time. Every nurse who leaves the bedside takes with her years of irreplaceable experience, institutional knowledge, and patient relationships. And right now, nurses are leaving at historically high rates.

Turnover & Retention by the Numbers

The 2025 NSI National Health Care Retention & RN Staffing Report tells a story of extraordinary churn. In 2024, approximately 287,000 staff RNs left their positions — and hospitals had to hire roughly 385,000 RNs just to backfill departures and grow capacity. That’s a massive amount of onboarding, orientation, and training happening simultaneously at healthcare institutions across the country, straining HR departments and experienced staff preceptors alike.

The financial cost is staggering too. Replacing a single bedside RN costs an average of $61,110, according to the NSI report. When you multiply that by the scale of annual turnover, the economic burden on health systems runs into the billions.

Burnout: The Human Side

These numbers reveal something important: the nurses who are staying are dedicated — 81% say they would still choose nursing if they could start over — but they are exhausted. Almost the same proportion (81%) report feeling burned out. The profession is simultaneously one of the most committed and one of the most depleted in the country.

Inadequate compensation ranks in the top five reasons nurses leave the workforce, according to the 2024 National Nursing Workforce Study by the National Council of State Boards of Nursing (NCSBN). Burnout, understaffing, incivility in the workplace, and limited career advancement round out the list.

The American Nurse Journal’s 2025–2026 Trends Survey (over 1,000 participants) found that staff turnover and recruitment difficulty both increased from the prior year, with nurse managers and clinical nurses alike citing retention of experienced staff as their most pressing concern.

6. Nursing Salaries in 2026

Pay is both a cause of and a potential solution to the nursing shortage. Here’s where it stands:

National Salary Benchmarks

RN salaries have grown significantly over the past decade and a half — from approximately $66,500 in 2009 to $98,430 in 2024–2025, a 48% increase over 14 years, according to BLS data compiled by Nurseslabs. The steepest gains came during 2022 and 2023, when average RN pay jumped 7.0% and 5.8% respectively — some of the fastest annual increases on record, driven by pandemic-era staffing crises and wage inflation.

California leads the country by a wide margin at an average of ~$148,000/year for RNs. The state benefits from strong nursing unions, high living costs, and mandatory nurse-to-patient ratio laws that both increase staffing requirements and drive up wages.

Despite these gains, inadequate pay remains a top driver of attrition. According to a 2024 Financial Freedom Survey by Bankrate, Americans say they need to earn roughly $186,000 annually to live comfortably — more than double the average full-time worker salary of $79,000, and well above even the highest-paid nurses in most states.

Union Impact on Pay

Nurses in unionized facilities earn an average of $9,200 more annually than their non-union counterparts, according to Research.com’s 2026 nursing salary analysis.

7. Nursing Shortage by State (2026)

The shortage is real everywhere, but it hits hardest in specific states and regions — particularly in the South and West.

States With the Most Severe RN Shortages

States With an RN Surplus in 2026

It’s worth noting that surpluses at the state level don’t always translate into adequate coverage at the facility level. Rural areas, specialty units, and underserved communities can face acute shortages even inside states that appear surplus on paper.

Lowest Nurse-to-Population Coverage (Highest Risk)

The following states have the lowest nurse-to-population ratios, suggesting the greatest per-capita strain on nursing resources: Idaho, New Mexico, Virginia, Georgia, Texas, Hawaii, Iowa, North Dakota, and Oklahoma — all with fewer than 8 nurses per 1,000 residents.

The LPN Trajectory: A Growing Crisis Within the Crisis

While attention tends to focus on registered nurses, licensed practical nurses face an even sharper trajectory. The LPN shortage is projected to double to 28% by 2036, and could reach 30% by 2038, per HRSA data. By the mid-2030s, more than 300,000 full-time LPN positions could remain unfilled if current trends hold.

8. Root Causes of the Nursing Shortage

The nursing shortage isn’t the product of any single failure. It’s the compounding result of demographic shifts, systemic underfunding, workforce culture, and structural bottlenecks in education — building over decades.

The Key Drivers

1. An Aging Workforce One million RNs are over 50. One-third of the entire nursing workforce could retire within 10–15 years. Nurse faculty are aging at the same rate, squeezing educational capacity from both ends simultaneously.

2. Burnout and COVID-19 Aftermath The pandemic was a turning point the industry has yet to fully recover from. Large numbers of nurses left the bedside — some permanently. High patient loads, moral distress, repeated exposure to death, and inadequate PPE drove an unprecedented wave of departures. Burnout continues to be a primary attrition factor, with 81% of nurses reporting it in surveys.

3. Insufficient Nursing School Capacity Even where student interest is strong, schools cannot admit enough candidates. Lack of qualified faculty, insufficient clinical placement sites, and tight budgets mean tens of thousands of qualified applicants are turned away every year.

4. High Nurse-to-Patient Ratios When staffing is short, the remaining nurses absorb the excess — creating a feedback loop where overwork leads to more burnout and more departures. Research consistently shows that unsafe nurse-to-patient ratios are linked to higher patient mortality, more medical errors, and faster nurse burnout.

5. Inadequate Compensation (in Many Regions) Despite real salary growth in recent years, pay remains a top-five reason nurses leave. States without strong unions or mandatory ratio laws often pay nurses far less than the cost of living demands.

6. Geography and Inequitable Distribution Nurses are not evenly distributed across the country. Rural communities and federally-designated Health Professional Shortage Areas (HPSAs) face extreme shortages, with limited ability to attract nurses with competitive salaries or career development opportunities.

7. Workplace Violence and Safety Concerns Research published in StatPearls/NIH notes that between 8% and 38% of healthcare workers experience some form of workplace violence during their careers. Emergency and psychiatric nurses face the highest risk. Verbal abuse, physical assault, and threats are significant contributors to job dissatisfaction and attrition.

9. The Economic Cost of the Shortage

The financial toll of the nursing shortage extends far beyond individual hospital budgets. It ripples through state economies, insurance systems, and the quality of care delivered to millions of Americans.

The reliance on travel nurses — which surged during the pandemic and never fully unwound — is itself a symptom of how expensive the shortage has become to manage. Travel nurses typically command significantly higher compensation than staff nurses, straining already thin hospital operating margins.

10. What’s Being Done: Solutions in Progress

The nursing shortage won’t be solved overnight, but a range of strategies is being deployed across healthcare systems, state governments, and nursing schools.

Workforce Pipeline Investments States and healthcare systems are expanding funding for nursing programs, building new clinical training partnerships with hospitals, and creating loan forgiveness programs to incentivize nursing careers in high-need areas.

Mandatory Staffing Ratios California’s pioneering nurse-to-patient ratio law remains the gold standard. Several other states have introduced or are actively debating similar legislation, recognizing that sustainable staffing is inseparable from nurse retention.

International Nurse Recruitment Immigration of internationally educated nurses has become a structural pillar of the US nursing workforce, particularly in high-shortage states like California and New York, where internationally trained nurses account for a significant share of hospital staff.

Technology and Virtual Nursing Virtual nursing — where experienced RNs remotely support bedside nurses with documentation, patient monitoring, and care coordination — is moving beyond the pilot stage at major health systems. It’s not a replacement for bedside nursing, but it offers genuine relief in high-demand environments.

Magnet Recognition Programs Hospitals with Magnet status (requiring 100% of nurse managers to hold a BSN or higher, among other standards) demonstrate better nurse retention, lower turnover, and stronger patient outcomes. These programs create structured environments where nurses want to stay.

Retention-Focused Culture Shifts The evidence is clear: when nurses have input into staffing decisions, burnout drops and turnover falls. Health systems investing in stay interviews, mental health support, and shared governance models are seeing measurable improvements in nurse retention.

11. Looking Ahead: 2026–2038 Projections

The 10-year picture is nuanced. The registered nurse shortage is projected to improve — halving from roughly 8% to 4% nationally by 2036 — as a combination of increased graduation rates, immigration, and retention efforts takes effect. But the LPN shortage is heading in the opposite direction, doubling or even quadrupling over the same window. And at the regional level, southern and western states will continue to bear a disproportionate share of the burden.

Meanwhile, the aging patient population is not slowing down. By 2050, the US older adult population is projected to rise by 23%, driving sustained demand for geriatric nursing and long-term care well beyond what current workforce pipelines can support.

12. Key Facts Summary

• Nurses represent over 50% of the entire US health workforce.
• There are currently ~3.28 million RNs employed in the United States.
• The US nursing shortage rate stands at 8.06% in 2026.
• The LPN shortage (20%) is twice as severe as the RN shortage (10%) nationally.
• About 189,100 RN positions open every year through 2034 — just to keep pace.
• The US is short by an estimated 500,000+ nurses as of 2025.
• 80,000+ qualified nursing applicants were turned away from schools in 2024 alone.
• The average bedside RN costs $61,110 to replace when they leave.
• 287,000 staff RNs left their jobs in 2024; hospitals hired ~385,000 to compensate.
• 81% of nurses report burnout — yet 81% also say they’d choose nursing again.
• The median RN salary is $93,600/year (BLS, May 2024), with California leading at ~$148,000.
• One-third of the nursing workforce — roughly 1 million nurses — are aged 50 or older.
• The LPN shortage is projected to double to 28% by 2036 and reach 30% by 2038.
• Wyoming has the highest RN surplus in the US at 103%; California, Texas, and Florida face the worst shortfalls.
• 5 of the 20 fastest-growing US occupations are in the nursing industry (BLS, 2025).

Sources & Methodology

All statistics cited in this article are sourced from verified primary and secondary sources, including:

• U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) — Occupational Outlook Handbook, OEWS Wage Data (2024 May release)
• Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) — Healthcare Workforce Projections
• American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) — Nursing Shortage Fact Sheet
• NSI National Health Care Retention & RN Staffing Report (2025)
• National Council of State Boards of Nursing (NCSBN) — 2024 National Nursing Workforce Study
• StatPearls / NIH National Library of Medicine — “Nursing Shortage,” Haddad, Annamaraju, Toney-Butler (2023, 2026 edition)
• American Nurse Journal — 2025–2026 Trends Survey
• Monster 2025 Healthcare Market Report
• Research.com — 2026 US Nursing Shortage State-by-State Breakdown
• AAG Health — 81 Healthcare Staffing Statistics (2025)
• IntelyCare, Nurse.org, NurseJournal.org, Nurseslabs — Analysis and synthesis of BLS/HRSA projections
• Patient Safety & Quality Healthcare / HealthLeaders Media — Compensation analysis (June 2025)

Disclaimer: The data reports published on The Global Files are sourced from publicly available materials considered reliable. While efforts are made to ensure accuracy, no guarantees are provided regarding completeness or reliability. The Global Files is not liable for any errors, omissions, or damages resulting from the use of these reports.