Nurses continue to flee South Dakota

The South Dakota Republican Party isn't about growth; it's about keeping Social Security recipients alive long enough to pay the property taxes that sustain red state failure.

The crony capitalism that keeps South Dakota the 8th worst state for the working class is destroying lands promised to native peoples by treaty and my home town of Elkton is struggling to find enough housing for migrant workers often living in squalor.

South Dakota is graying fast and nursing beds represent economic development but even the Janklow-owned Riverside Manor in Flandreau is overwhelmingly staffed by Filipinos and Filipinas as are most facilities for the elderly in South Dakota.

According to a 2017 Georgetown University study a good job is one that pays at least $35,000 annually for those under 45 and at least $45,000 annually for workers 45 and older.

According to the American Nurses Association, South Dakota’s registered nurses have the lowest annual salary of any state and the District of Columbia, ranking 51st behind Mississippi, Alabama and Iowa. The association reports that South Dakota’s 12,530 registered nurses received an average annual salary of $57,010, or $27.41 per hour in 2017. California’s RNs posted the highest compensation at $102,700, $49.37 per hour. [Low pay complicates efforts to attract, retain nurses in South Dakota]

The mother of my daughters, the Odd Goddess of Basin and Our Lady of the Arroyo are all registered nurses.

Mobridge Care and Rehabilitation Center and Madison Care and Rehabilitation Center are expected to close early next year because they can't keep staff. It's just going to get worse under another Republican governor and an even more extremist legislature.

Any RN with half a brain will leave for Minnesota, Colorado or the Southwest the instant they graduate so the work force in South Dakota will just get older, stupider and more Republican.