RN Salary in Mississippi: Why It Ranks Last in the Nation

The median RN salary in Mississippi is $77,090 a year, or $37.06 an hour. Half the state's registered nurses earn more than that and half earn less, and the mean sits slightly higher at $78,950, pulled up by a handful of high-paying specialty and leadership roles.

The real story is the spread. The bottom 10 percent of Mississippi RNs earn $60,610 or less, while the top 10 percent clear $100,350. That is not a small gap, and it is not random. Nurses at the bottom of that range are usually new graduates still on orientation pay, nurses working long-term care and skilled nursing facilities where reimbursement rates keep RN salary numbers down, or RNs in small rural counties where the local hospital sets pay closer to the floor than the ceiling. The 25th percentile, $64,930, is a realistic starting RN salary for a new grad in a mid-size Mississippi hospital.

At the other end, nurses clearing $84,500, the 75th percentile, and above are typically years into acute care, working a specialty unit like the ICU or the OR, picking up night and weekend differential pay, or holding charge and supervisory responsibilities. The $100,350 mark at the 90th percentile is close to the ceiling for staff RN work in Mississippi, and getting there usually means a combination of seniority, a demanding specialty, and heavy overtime or differential hours rather than one single factor.

Mississippi ranks #50 of 51 states and D.C. for median RN pay. The national median is $97,550, $46.90 an hour, which puts the RN salary in Mississippi $20,460 below the U.S. number. That gap is bigger than it looks: it is close to a third of what the median Mississippi nurse takes home in a year.

Against its neighbors, Mississippi is not an outlier so much as the floor of a low-paying region. Alabama's median RN salary is $77,080, just $10 below Mississippi, essentially a wash. Arkansas pays a median of $78,940, $1,850 more than Mississippi. Louisiana comes in at $80,230, a $3,140 edge. Tennessee is the clearest step up at $81,500, a $4,410 gap over the Mississippi median.

None of those gaps are life-changing on their own, and none of them account for the cost of licensing in a new state, moving expenses, or the fact that Mississippi generally runs cheaper to live in than its neighbors. A nurse weighing a move to Tennessee for an extra $4,410 a year needs real numbers on rent, taxes, and commute before deciding it is worth it. Crossing into Louisiana or Arkansas for $3,140 or $1,850 is a smaller bet, and for most nurses within driving distance of a border, comparing a specific job offer beats assuming the state median applies to them.

Taxes are part of that math too. Mississippi taxes wage income like any other paycheck, so a Mississippi RN does not get some special break on state income tax that a neighboring state lacks. Anyone comparing an offer across a state line should check that destination state's tax treatment directly rather than assuming Mississippi's rules carry over. The honest verdict: the RN salary differences between Mississippi and its neighbors are real but modest, and they should factor into a decision, not drive it by themselves. For the full national picture, see the national RN salary guide.

Percentiles work like a career ladder. A new Mississippi RN typically starts around the 25th percentile, $64,930, and the climb from there to the 75th percentile, $84,500, is where most of a career's RN salary growth happens.

Years on the job move the needle, but they are not the only lever. Night and weekend shift differentials add up over a career, and hospitals that run 24/7 units lean on them to staff the hours nobody wants. Certifications matter too. A CCRN for critical care nurses, a CEN for emergency department nurses, or a similar specialty credential signals to an employer that a nurse is worth a higher rate, and many hospital pay scales build in a bump for board certification. Unionized hospital systems, where they exist, negotiate wage scales that raise the RN salary floor for everyone on them rather than leaving pay to individual negotiation.

Setting changes the ladder too. Moving from long-term care or a rural clinic into acute care, or from a general medical-surgical floor into a specialty unit like the ICU, OR, or ED, tends to push a nurse toward the 75th percentile and beyond. Nurses who want to see how a finished degree fits into that climb should look at RN-to-BSN programs, since BSN-preferred and BSN-required hospital ladders are one of the more direct ways an ADN nurse in Mississippi can qualify for a higher RN salary band without leaving bedside nursing.

If the goal is a meaningfully higher RN salary in Mississippi, the options break into a clear hierarchy, and they are not equally effective.

• Become a nurse practitioner. This is the single biggest jump available to any RN salary in the state. The median NP salary in Mississippi is $124,730, $47,640 a year above the Mississippi RN median. Nothing else on this list gets close. Anyone considering it should look at nurse practitioner programs and the full nurse practitioner salary breakdown before committing to the years of graduate school it takes.
• Finish the BSN. Many Mississippi hospitals build BSN-preferred or BSN-required pay differentials into their ladders. RN-to-BSN programs are the fastest route for an ADN nurse already working to move onto that ladder and raise their RN salary without leaving the workforce.
• Switch specialty or setting. Moving from long-term care into acute care, or into a high-demand specialty like ICU, ED, or the OR, tends to move a nurse up the percentile ladder covered above through differential pay and specialty certification.
• Travel nursing. Travel contracts can pay more than a staff RN role in Mississippi, particularly during high-demand seasons, though contract pay varies by assignment, agency, and location and does not come with the stability of a permanent staff position.

The NP route is not right for everyone. It means two to three more years of graduate school, a new license, and a different scope of practice built around diagnosing and prescribing rather than bedside care. A nurse who loves direct patient care at the bedside, or who cannot take on graduate school debt and lost income right now, is often better served finishing a BSN and moving into a specialty unit than chasing the NP jump. The $47,640 gap is real, but it comes with years of tuition and a career change, not just a bump to an existing RN salary.

Mississippi employs 29,060 registered nurses, good for #33 among all states for total RN employment even though the pay ranks #50. That is a mid-size workforce, not a tiny one, spread across a state without a single dominant metro area, which means RN salary and demand can vary more by hospital system and region than in states with one large city driving the numbers.

A workforce this size gives nurses some leverage, particularly in specialties or shifts that are chronically hard to staff, but it does not erase the state's position at the bottom of the national RN salary table. National RN job growth is projected at 6 percent through 2032, and there is no reason to expect Mississippi hospitals to sit out that trend given the state's role in staffing rural and mid-size communities.

LPNs in Mississippi earn a median of $50,220, and RNs earn $26,870 more than that. For an LPN weighing the jump to RN, that gap is one of the clearest returns on additional education anywhere in this RN salary data, and it holds regardless of where Mississippi ranks nationally on RN pay itself. An LPN bridging into an RN license is not comparing Mississippi to Tennessee, they are comparing $50,220 to $77,090 in the same labor market, and that math works in their favor no matter what the border states pay.

The next step for anyone serious about maximizing an RN salary in Mississippi, whether starting from an LPN license, an ADN, or a BSN, is the same: look at the best RN programs in Mississippi and decide whether the fastest path up is finishing a degree, adding a certification, or building toward the NP track covered above. The state's #50 pay rank is not going to reverse on its own, so the nurses who come out ahead here are the ones who treat the percentile ladder, not the state average, as the target.