Current Travel Wage Trends by State
2025 Update: Travel Nurse Wages Remain Volatile as Staffing Priorities Shift
The dramatic swings in travel nurse wages seen during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic have quieted in 2025, but volatility remains. While the urgency of pandemic response has faded, the aftershocks are still being felt in health systems across the country. Many hospitals have pivoted their hiring strategies to prioritize full-time staff, contributing to a decline in travel contracts and increasing instability for travel nurses.
Amid tighter budgets, pay cuts and mid-contract cancellations have become more common, prompting some travel nurses to reconsider the profession altogether. Others remain committed, drawn by the continued pay premium over permanent roles in many regions — with wages still well above pre-2020 levels.
💼 Post-Pandemic Staffing Challenges
Hospitals that leaned heavily on travel nurses between 2020 and 2022 are now facing a different kind of crisis: shrinking reimbursement, staff retirements, and an enduring shortage of full-time clinical workers. These conditions have made consistent scheduling and compensation harder to guarantee.
In many cases, travel nurses are being asked to fill in last-minute, short-term roles as health systems avoid long-term contract commitments. That means less predictability, both in job opportunities and in wages.
📉 Contract Instability and Wage Fluctuations in 2025
So far in 2025:
- More than 60% of states reported month-over-month wage declines at least once in Q1.
- Several states, including Maryland, Nevada, and New Jersey, saw double-digit percentage drops in travel RN wages early in the year.
- Delaware posted one of the highest gains, with travel nurse pay climbing 3.6% in January, despite minimal changes in local hospitalization rates.
- Maryland, by contrast, saw a dramatic 19.2% drop, pushing average weekly pay just above $1,700, the lowest among coastal states. This decline came despite a mild uptick in COVID-19 cases, hinting at broader policy and budget shifts.
🔁 Pandemic-Era Policies Continue to Echo
Several states are actively exploring or enforcing price caps on travel nurse contracts, citing concerns over rate inflation. These legislative efforts, though often well-meaning, have contributed to uncertainty in the travel job market, with hospitals reluctant to overcommit and clinicians wary of abrupt changes.
Still, travel nursing remains a financially viable choice, especially for those flexible enough to shift regions or specialties. Many markets continue to pay above $2,400/week, particularly in critical care and OR assignments.
🧠 Goodwork Insight
Whether wages are rising or falling, the problem is the same: unpredictability. That’s why Goodwork only charges recruiters after a hire is made, and equips them with AI tools that track wage trends, automate matching, and improve lead quality without bloated job board fees. For travel nurses, that means fewer bait-and-switch listings. For recruiters, it means every dollar works harder.
