Missouri RN Salary - How Much Do RNs Make in MO?

According the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the state of Missouri employed about 64,870 registered nurses in May of 2018. The cost of living in Missouri is about eight percent below the national average, with Springfield being the least expensive city and Kansas City being the most expensive.The average RN salary in Missouri is $58,040 or about $27.90 per hour. RNs with earnings in the 75th percentile of their field earn more than $69,160. Those with earnings in the 25th percentile make less than $46,090. The median annual salary was $56,690 at this time. The average RN salary in this state was below the national average reported by the BLS by about $8,000.

The St. Louis and Kansas City areas of both Missouri employ a large percentage of Missouri’s registered nurses. The former city employed 33,300 RNs and the latter employed 20,770 as of 2018. In addition to employing the largest numbers of registered nurses in the state, these two areas also have the highest average salaries. The average RN salary in St. Louis was $59,240 or about $28.48 per hour. In Kansas City, RNs were paid an average of $62,160 or about $29.88 per hour. This is the highest average salary in the state. The cost of living in both of these cities is just below the national average, though it costs slightly more to live in Kansas City than in St. Louis.

The lowest average salary in Missouri, at the time when this data was collected, could be found in Joplin. In this area, RNs were paid an average of $44,230 per year. This was more than $20,000 below the national average at this time. Though the cost of living is about 11 percent below the national average, it may not be enough to offset this difference in salary.

Resources

• https://meric.mo.gov/data/cost-living-data-series