The nursing shortage has existed for a long time, well before the COVID-19 pandemic. During the pandemic, our health care system came close to collapsing, in part because of a shortage of health care workers, and the nursing shortage will get worse because of nurses retiring, nurses experiencing high levels of burnout, nurse recruitment challenges, widening wage gaps among nurse positions, and hospital profit margins.

In the United States, 40% of nurses are older than 50 years and more than 1 million nurses are estimated to retire by 2030.1  There were approximately 3 million registered nurses in May 2021,2  so the health care industry could lose nearly one-third of registered nurses to retirement over the next 7 years. Furthermore, baby boomers are reaching retirement age, a phenomenon referred to as the “Silver Tsunami.”3  The elderly population (>65 years) will total an estimated 78 million people and will...

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