I've been a pharmacist since 1990, and my wife is a BSN Registered Nurse.
This reply may be a little lengthy, but will give you a lot of insight to both professions.
The short answer to your question is - Pharmacists wage is a little more than double that of a nurse. In my part of the USA, the highest pharmacist wage I've heard of is $65/hour. Even with a Master's degree, a nurse does not even approach that. The highest nursing wage would be those with an advanced degree, such as a Masters degree Nurse Practitioner, but even they make less than pharmacists.
Both professions education options and requirements have expanded dramatically since 1990. The "entry level" degree to be a licensed pharmacist is now a Pharm D. This degree requires 6 years, if you go straight thru and don't have to repeat a class. That said, if the student screws up and takes 7 years to obtain a degree that he/she COULD have been obtained in 6, that "oopsie" just cost him/her about $150,000.00 - after you calculate the lost income of $130K, plus the additional expenses of being a student another year - books, tuition, interest accruing on loans, etc...
There are several things that contribute to pharmacists wages being so much higher than nursing. Everyone wants to point to the years of education, but that's NOT the true reason. As mentioned above, only the Master's degree nurse practitioner or Nurse Anesthetist even approach my pay check.
The Pharmacist is a "revenue generating" staff member. Because the medications we dispense are generating profits, the resulting income, sales, or insurance reimbursement is then used to justify paying the higher salary. In some cases the pharmacist is used to identify $$ wasted, by hospital MD's ordering extremely expensive meds with a very small profit, and then recommending a less expensive alternative that has a higher profit margin. This reduction in the cost of doing business is the SAME as generating pure profits! i.e.. It may require $1,000 in sales to generate a $100 profit, but a decision that decreases COSTS by $100 has instantly increased profits by $100.
The Nurse on the other hand does not DIRECTLY generate income for a hospital. (I know you can think of some examples, I'm married to a nurse.) Lets say that 95% of what a nurse does for a patient is NOT a "billable" service... meaning you can't bill the patient for your services. For the most part, everything the nurse does increases cost, which decreases profits. Every band aid, dressing change, catheter inserted, etc. has increased cost, with no service to be billed. Even the nurses wages are an "expense" to the hospital, because having more nurses on the floor does not result in a proportional increase in billable services (sales, income).
This is the reason hospitals are always wanting to see how FEW nurses are needed to provide care for the MAX number of patients.
Pharmacists however to not have these issues. More pharmacists on duty can result in dispensing more and more meds, which ARE billable services... and we assist with the decisions for the "hospital formulary" that avoids using those outrageously expensive meds with very low re-imbursement... which decreases costs, and increases profits. For easy example: if a patient is getting an IV medication daily, Nexium 40mg for example, and the pharmacist notes that the patient is eating and taking other meds by mouth - many hospitals delegate the pharmacist to go ahead and switch the IV Nexium to be Nexium given by mouth. This decision decreased the cost of caring for the patient by $4.34/day... for the REST of their hospital stay. If we do this for 20 patients per day and they stay 5 days in the hospital, we have generated $434 of PROFIT each day, which = $158,410 per year. This one function (of many) has justified 1.33 pharmacists salary!
Many states have also made it illegal for nurses to become "unionized", out of fear that they will go on strike and leave the health and safety of the public in danger. The employers in those states basically view their nurses as "replaceable" and in some ways even desire the employee turnover - so no one stays around long enough to become "highly compensated". They just hire new grads, and then pay them peanuts.
For the record - Nurses are the most UNDER compensated profession in the USA. Considering the huge responsibility (and liability) that they have taken on, the amount of abuse they tolerate from both patients and families, the exposure to the worse of all the infectious diseases, the bodies they have to bathe, touch, smell, and look at, - the butts they wipe and the catheters they insert... they SHOULD be the highest paid person in the building. -but it is not so.
I thought they made about $40-50k? I use to think about being a dentist. That didn't work out either.
I don't think I will clean bed pans for 500K a year. sorry.
