In our last session of poring over the statistics for the annual salary survey, we noted that the national average for hourly rates for dental hygienists had dropped more than $7 since 2011.
We didn’t want to hit the panic button. Plenty of dental hygienists are already concerned about the recent growth of dental hygiene schools in the country. Too many graduates in the middle of a recession equal bad news, such as the fear of salaries in general decreasing.
READ:Survey, part 2: The national not-The-View view
READ:Survey, part 1: The kids are all right
We mentioned that the seven-dollar drop nationally could be the result of more hygienists with lower incomes (from regions with lower costs of living) participating in the survey. And that’s probably the case here.
But we did keep an eye out on it for this breakdown of hourly rates state by state. Some states do have noticeable decreases in their hourly rates.
If you don’t want to click through all 50 links below to find those states, we’ll save you the aggravation. But, first, we did set a bar with all of the states. If less than a set number sent in reports of hourly rates, we did not include them in the list below. But there are some states that did not participate in the survey as much as others that have decreases too from the 2011 numbers.
But, among the states that did submit a respectable amount of data, decreases were noted in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, New Jersey, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. We were probably most surprised by New Jersey, since the state seemed to flourish during the recession, along with the rest of the New York City region.
But it was not all bad news. Increases in the hourly rates are noted for many states. In particular, check out the information about the states surrounding the District of Columbia — Maryland and Virginia. Both states seem to offer progressive working conditions for dental hygienists.
The links below also offer information about benefits too (again, in states where the number of responses would suggest at least somewhat accurate percentages). The upcoming reports on the RDH eVillage salary survey will examine statistics for full-time hygienists and readers who participate in metropolitan areas.
Dental hygienists can still participate in the survey by clicking here.
