Are nurses guilty of ‘price gouging’ for being paid $10,000 per week in NYC, which is 500% above normal?

By Mark J. Perry.

"Nurse.org is reporting that travel nurses in New York City are making more than $10,000 per week and more than $100,000 for a 13-week assignment:

Only a few weeks ago, all eyes were on Seattle as the epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak. It just so happens that Nurse.org is headquartered in Seattle and our neighbor, NuWest Healthcare, was tasked with staffing the most crucial job openings with travel nurses. And, we wanted to help them.
We called on our Nurse.org community of over 30 million people to help get nurses to the areas they were needed most – hard-hit areas of Western Washington. After publishing an interview with NuWest’s President, Mona Veiseh – nurses answered the call in a big way. Within 2-weeks, and working around the clock, NuWest Healthcare was able to fully staff all of their open positions in Seattle area hospitals. 
This week, New York needs to hire at least 200 ICU and ED nurses for one of the largest health systems in the nation. This week’s projections show a huge influx of patients, including ICU, and hospitals are in dire need.
Here are some incentives that we’ve found from New York State and staffing agencies. 
*Crisis Pay – Travel nursing agencies are offering crisis pay that is over double the average pay for travel nurses. We are seeing pay rates of over $10,000 per week plus quarantine pay.
*Free hotel rooms – several hotels, including the Four Seasons.
*Free car rentals – Hertz is offering free car rentals for healthcare workers
*Free airfare – Delta and Jetblue are offering free flights to medical workers who are helping tackle the COVID-19 pandemic.
*Discounts and offers – Businesses are also offering incentives, not only to travel nurses but to all nurses. From free crocs shoes and free Starbucks coffee to discounts on scrubs, we’ve collected all the specials and you can see the offers here. 

MP: Meanwhile, New York City has received 1,000 complaints and issued more than 500 violations totaling $275,000 for price gouging on coronavirus-related supplies like hand sanitizer, face masks, and disinfectant wipes since March 5 according to the New York Post:

“Now is the time for us to come together, not take advantage of each other for a profit, but we continue to hear about and see empty shelves and price gouging,” said Dept. of Consumer Affairs Commissioner Lorelei Salas.
On Monday Mayor Bill de Blasio added several more items to the list of supplies that cannot be sold for more than 10% of their regular value. Fines are $500 per service item. The additions include thermometers, latex gloves, fever reducers, cough suppressant, zinc oxide supplements, paper towels, toilet paper and facial tissue. Rubbing alcohol and aloe vera, which can be combined to create hand sanitizer, are also covered.

Many Questions: Where’s the public outrage over the 500% increase in the weekly pay for nurses (average pre-crisis nurse salary in New York state was $1,670 vs. $10,000 now) when consumers are complaining and filing complaints about measly price increases of +10% for hand sanitizer, face masks, toilet paper, and disinfectant wipes? Why don’t New York City’s price gouging laws apply to nurses? Wouldn’t uniform enforcement of NYC’s anti-price gouging be fairer than apparently allowing exceptions for nurses? The services of nurses are certainly critical to the pandemic crisis but aren’t hand sanitizer, face masks, and disinfectant wipes just as critical? By what logic are hand sanitizer and the services of nurses so materially different such that price gouging laws apply to one but not the other? If price-gouging laws were applied to nurses in NYC, would that make the crisis better or worse?

See Venn diagram version above.

Update: To clarify my position on price gouging since many of the comments seemed to miss my satirical, tongue-in-cheek point of the post. I oppose anti-price gouging laws whether the laws apply to critical supplies like face masks and hand sanitizer or critical services like nursing. Reason? Market prices do a much better job of minimizing suffering and allocating scarce resources during a state of emergency than government price-fixing/price controls. Merchants should be free to set market prices for goods in high demand and short supply like toilet paper and cleaning supplies and nurses should be free to set market prices for their services. I have no problem with merchants raising prices in response to market conditions of high demand and short supply and I have no problem with nurses getting paid $10,000 per week. If anti-price gouging laws were applied to the services provided by nurses, it would make the situation much worse, not better. Likewise, anti-price gouging laws applied to toilet paper, hand sanitizer, cleaning supplies and face masks are guaranteed to make the situation worse, not better."