Hospital and health system pay strategies are getting more deliberate in 2026. Minimum wage hikes are up sharply from last year, union contracts are settling into smaller, steadier raises instead of 2025’s double-digit jumps, and CHROs are steering dollars toward specific roles rather than spreading them evenly — a shift playing out even as national wage data shows the broader market barely moved.
Here are five takeaways on the state of healthcare compensation:
1. Across-the-board minimum wage increases have been more common in 2026 so far. Just two systems implemented a minimum wage increase in 2025: Hagerstown, Md.-based Meritus Health raised its minimum wage to $18 per hour, and Charlotte, N.C.-based Atrium Health increased the minimum wage for its North and South Carolina employees to $18.50.
In just the first half of 2026, seven systems raised their minimum wage: Greensboro, N.C.-based Cone Health to $18 an hour; Little Rock-based University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences to $16 an hour; New Orleans-based Ochsner Health to $15 an hour; New Orleans-based LCMC Health to $15 an hour; Durham, N.C.-based Duke University Health System to $20 an hour; Charlotte, N.C.-based Advocate Health to $18.85 an hour; and Baton Rouge, La.-based FMOL Health to $15 an hour.
2. Base wages for hospital’s largest occupation, registered nursing, grew modestly year over year, per federal data. RNs earned a median annual wage of $97,550 and a mean annual wage of $101,420, according to May 2025 wage data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which was released in 2026. That is up from a mean annual RN wage of $101,100 in an April 2025 BLS news release.
3. Pay for hospital workers still varies by role, with a roughly 12-to-1 gap between the highest- and lowest-paid occupations. The May 2025 BLS data shows mean annual wages ranging from $37,080 for maids and housekeeping cleaners to $454,940 for cardiologists. That gap was narrower in the prior year’s data ($41,070 to $398,620, or roughly 10-to-1), suggesting the spread between the wage floor and ceiling is widening slightly rather than staying flat.
4. Union-negotiated raises are moderating in 2026 compared with the biggest deals struck in 2025. Many of 2025’s largest contracts topped 20% over the life of the deal — Oregon Providence nurses secured 20% to 42%, UChicago Medicine Ingalls Memorial nurses in Harvey, Ill., landed 24% over four years and nurses at San Leandro and Alameda hospitals in California secured at least 25% over five years. Several 2026 deals still hit similar highs: Kaiser Permanente’s 52 contracts included a 21.5% base increase over four years that grows to about 30% with step increases, and MedStar Washington Hospital Center nurses secured nearly 24% over three years.
However, the broader 2026 list skews more moderate, with newer contracts like Good Samaritan University Hospital’s 4%-3%-4% annual structure and Berkshire Medical Center’s 4.25%-3.5%-3%-3% schedule reflecting smaller, more incremental year-over-year raises that outnumber the double-digit, front-loaded jumps still appearing in 2026.
5. Health systems are recalibrating, rather than abandoning, across-the-board raises in favor of targeted, data-driven allocation. Health system leaders told Becker’s in May that spreading raises evenly fails to reward high performers. CHROs in March described actively steering 2026 dollars toward specific hard-to-fill roles like nursing, pharmacy, respiratory therapy and behavioral health, using metrics like time-to-fill and turnover data rather than defaulting to broad increases. Organizations like Meritus Health and Beaufort (S.C.) Memorial Hospital are landing on hybrid models, preserving broad raises for equity while layering in merit-based rewards for top performers — a sign that most systems are not ditching broad-based pay increases altogether, just adding more precision on top of them.
At the Becker's 11th Annual IT + Revenue Cycle Conference: The Future of AI & Digital Health, taking place September 14–17 in Chicago, healthcare executives and digital leaders from across the country will come together to explore how AI, interoperability, cybersecurity, and revenue cycle innovation are transforming care delivery, strengthening financial performance, and driving the next era of digital health. Apply for complimentary registration now.
