Examination of state-level changes in the pharmacist labor market using Census data

Abstract

Objective: To examine long-term changes in the U.S. pharmacist labor market across states.

Design: Retrospective cohort study.

Setting: The United States as a whole and individual states in 1990 and 2000.

Participants: Pharmacists and pharmacy school graduates from Census data and previous research, respectively.

Intervention: Retrospective analysis of 5% Public Use Microdata Samples data on pharmacists from the 1990 and 2000 U.S. Census surveys, information on migration among states between 1995 and 2000, and previous research on pharmacy school graduates.

Main outcome measures: Changes in pharmacist counts and wages, as well as migration of pharmacists across states and pharmacy school graduates by state.

Results: From 1990 to 2000, the ratio of pharmacists to 100,000 population increased from 70 to 76, but 13 states experienced declines in this datum, and overall changes in pharmacist counts varied considerably among states. The average wage, expressed in 2000 U.S. dollars, for pharmacists increased from $26.58 per hour to $33.80 per hour (17%), while the average wages of non-pharmacist college graduates increased from $26.37 to only $28.76 (9%). Wage changes varied across states.

Conclusion: According to the Census, the number of pharmacists per 100,000 population varied substantially across states. This variance in supply across states is not converging or easily explained. Overall, the shortage had a clear impact on the pharmacist labor market, yet this effect was not consistent across states.