2026 Salary Data
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Philadelphia, PALIVE
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Unlike teachers, Philadelphia's registered nurses don't work off a single citywide pay scale — pay is set hospital by hospital, often through separate union contracts (PASNAP represents RNs at several major systems), and varies by specialty, shift, and experience. A new grad RN in Philadelphia starts around $77,180 a year; reported averages across all experience levels run $88,700–$111,200, with top earners reporting $135,000+. This guide breaks down where those numbers come from — and, further down, what a nurse's paycheck looks like after taxes.
A new graduate Registered Nurse in Philadelphia earns an average of $77,180 a year, with most new grads falling between $69,176 and $86,251 depending on health system, unit, and shift. Nurses who work nights, weekends, or in high-acuity units like the ICU or ER typically see meaningfully more than these base figures once shift differentials and overtime are added — Glassdoor reports Philadelphia RNs earning an extra $10,000+ a year on average from these sources alone.
Because there's no single citywide pay scale the way there is for Philadelphia's public school teachers, a new grad's actual starting offer depends heavily on which health system is hiring: Penn Medicine, Jefferson Health, Temple University Health System, CHOP, and Einstein Health are the city's largest employers of nurses, and each sets its own pay scale (some negotiated with a nurses' union, some not).
Reported pay spreads widely by experience and percentile. Here's how the range breaks down across the two most-cited Philadelphia-specific data sources:
| Percentile / Level | Glassdoor | Salary.com |
|---|---|---|
| New grad / entry (Level 1) | — | $76,990 avg |
| 25th percentile | $88,474 | $68,956 |
| Average / median | $103,623 | $95,730 (midpoint) |
| 75th percentile | — | $122,503 |
| 90th percentile (top earners) | $141,677 | — |
Sources: Glassdoor and Salary.com Philadelphia RN salary pages, 2026. Ranges reflect self-reported and job-posting data and can shift with each site's update cycle. Career-long growth reported by Glassdoor runs from about $76,900 early-career to $141,700+ for top earners.
Regional nurse salary data shows meaningful spread by unit and specialty, driven by acuity, demand, and how much of the pay comes from shift/weekend differentials.
Range: $97,276–$119,787
Range: $84,384–$108,674
Range: $78,233–$96,392
Range: $75,754–$94,223
Range: $75,921–$91,572
Range: $74,500–$92,700
Range: $72,600–$91,700
Regional (PA/NJ tri-state) nurse specialty averages, compiled from Bureau of Labor Statistics and Salary.com data. These are base-pay figures before shift differentials, certifications, or overtime, which can add substantially to take-home earnings — especially in high-acuity or short-staffed units.
Many are. The Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals (PASNAP) represents registered nurses at several major Philadelphia-area health systems, including Temple University Hospital, Einstein Healthcare Network, and St. Christopher's Hospital for Children, negotiating contract pay scales, staffing ratios, and annual raises much like the PFT does for teachers — but on a hospital-by-hospital basis rather than one citywide schedule. Other large systems, like Penn Medicine and Jefferson, largely set nurse pay through their own internal scales rather than a union contract.
This is the core reason Philadelphia nurse salaries don't reduce to one clean number the way Philadelphia teacher salaries do: a nurse's pay depends heavily on which employer they work for, not just their years of experience.
A Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) generally commands somewhat higher starting pay than an Associate Degree in Nursing (ADN) at the same employer, though the gap at hiring is often modest — a few thousand dollars a year rather than a lane jump like the one on a teacher's schedule. The bigger BSN advantage tends to show up in hiring access rather than base pay: many Magnet-recognized hospitals in the Philadelphia area (a designation tied to nursing excellence) increasingly require or strongly prefer a BSN for RN roles, and advancement into charge nurse, education, or management tracks is easier with one. Nurses can also increase pay significantly through specialty certifications (e.g., CCRN for critical care) and advanced degrees like an MSN, which opens Nurse Practitioner-level pay well above the RN figures on this page.
Once you know your salary from the ranges above, the next question is what lands in your bank account after taxes. Philadelphia adds its own resident Wage Tax on top of Pennsylvania's flat state tax and federal withholding — the calculator below runs the full breakdown for any salary, shift-differential total, or filing status.
On the reported Philadelphia RN average of $103,623, a single filer nets approximately $74,537 a year (about $6,211/month or $2,867 every two weeks) after federal tax, Pennsylvania's 3.07% state tax, Philadelphia's 3.75% resident Wage Tax, and FICA — roughly 28.1% going to taxes. A new grad on the $77,180 average nets closer to $57,756 a year (about $2,221 every two weeks), an effective rate of about 25.2%. Use the calculator below to plug in your own salary.
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Estimates only, based on 2026 IRS federal brackets and standard deduction, Pennsylvania's flat 3.07% income tax, the 2026 PA employee UC (SUI) rate of 0.07%, Philadelphia's 3.75% resident Wage Tax, and 2026 FICA figures ($184,500 Social Security wage base). Not tax or legal advice. Shift differentials, overtime, and union contract specifics vary by employer and are not fully modeled here.
Actual nurse pay varies by employer and isn't set by city government — this isn't a claim about what nurses are actually paid elsewhere. It holds the reported Philadelphia average ($103,623) constant and isolates just the effect of each city's local wage tax, since federal, state, SUI, and FICA are identical everywhere in PA.
| City | Local Rate | Annual Take-Home (same $103,623 salary) |
|---|---|---|
| Philadelphia | 3.75% | $74,537 |
| Pittsburgh | 3.00% | $75,314 (+$777) |
| Allentown | 1.975% | $76,401 (+$1,864) |
See the Salaries hub for more salary-and-city combinations, the Teacher Salary in Philadelphia guide for a comparable public-sector salary breakdown, or use the Salary Comparison Tool to compare two cities directly.