Compared with the local labor market
Registered Nurse (Safety) pay vs. California
Across all employers in California, the median wage for Registered Nurses — about 338,940 people — is $140,270. Department of State Hospitals pays a median base salary of $120,710 for this role, 14% below that figure — about the 24th percentile of local pay for the occupation.
Where Department of State Hospitals sits in the local pay range
$101,260
$122,440
$140,270
$173,170
$213,320
Department of State Hospitals median · $120,710
The bar is the range of annual wages for Registered Nurses across every employer in California, from the 10th to the 90th percentile, with the middle 50% highlighted. The marker shows Department of State Hospitals’s median base salary for this role. Both figures are base pay only.
And across the country
Nationwide, the median wage for Registered Nurses — about 3,379,720 people — is $97,550. Department of State Hospitals’s median base salary is 24% above that national figure, about the 80th percentile of pay for the occupation nationally.
$68,940
$80,330
$97,550
$112,350
$137,470
Department of State Hospitals median · $120,710
Local and national wages differ for reasons beyond how well a job pays — cost of living, the mix of employers, and local demand for the occupation all move the California range relative to the national one.
Computed over the 1,849 of 2,232 people in this role paid at least $25,000in base salary. The rest are part-year or part-time records, whose actual pay isn’t comparable to a full-time annual wage.
Median total compensation for this role at Department of State Hospitals is $126,870, which includes overtime and employer-paid benefits. The benchmark above excludes both, so total compensation is deliberately not compared against it.
Benchmark: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (May 2025). BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) covers all employers in the area — private, non-profit, and government alike — so this is a comparison against the whole local labor market for the occupation, not against private-sector pay. OEWS wages are straight-time pay and exclude overtime, shift differentials, and employer-paid benefits, so the government figure shown here is base pay on the same basis. Total compensation is not comparable to it. Job titles are matched to the closest standard occupation, so the comparison is between similar work rather than an identical job classification.
Compare departments
This role across California
Registered Nurse (Safety) is held in 2 California departments. In Department of State Hospitals, the median of $126,870 ranks #1 of 2.
Highest-paying departments for this role
Median total compensation for the Registered Nurse (Safety) role in other Californiadepartments (highest first). Each bar links to that department’s page for this role.