Free Essays, Term Papers, Research Papers at Anti Essays

When I began this paper I assumed wages were determined in a market economy by several factors such as; where the job was located, what state, city, type of business it is. I assumed other factors would also help determine wages, for example, level of education of the applicant and other special licensing the applicant may have. In addition to these factors, I also thought the amount of experience would help to determine the wage. After reading many sites, I see that these are not necessarily the factors that determine the wages of nurses in Pennsylvania. The economic principle, People Face Tradeoffs, is certainly true with nurses. First of all nurses are paid the same wage no matter if they have one year of experience or 20. Secondly, nurses have job security since there is a perception of a shortage of nurses. So the tradeoff of making a lower wage, is that they have job security, but not a high wage.
Indeed, wages for nurses in Pennsylvania differ for the different levels of nursing i.e. RN, LPN, Aid, etc. Wages in Pennsylvania though, are set by the hospitals. According to Lovell (2006), there can be “ Collusion among hospital administrators. Although holding down nurses’ wages can create or worsen labor supply problems, hospital administrators may perceive lower wages to be in their best interests. In a market with more than one hospital, however, an individual hospital whose wages are lower than its competitors will not be able to attract enough nurses. In this situation, hospital administrators may choose to unlawfully work together to set wages for the entire local labor market. When hospitals join together to set nurse wages in their communities, normal supply and demand processes will not work, and wages will not respond appropriately to shortages. Employers engaging in this kind of collusive behavior regarding wage-setting act much as a monopoly would in terms of setting prices for its product: With only minimal, or no, competition,...