The median advertised pay for a travel PCU (progressive care unit) contract in Kentucky is $2,255 per week, with the middle half between $1,917 and $2,367. Measured across 7 active travel PCU contracts in Kentucky at 4 facilities, as of 2026-09-15.
Advertised weekly totals, taxable base plus tax-free stipends. Not take-home. With only 7 open contracts in Kentucky, treat that median as an indication rather than a rate: the contracts below are the useful part of this page.
That is 1 percent under the $2,268 national median for travel PCU contracts.
Kentucky is a Nurse Licensure Compact state, so an active multistate license covers you here. A single-state license from elsewhere does not. The compact state list explains which states issue one.
| Weekly rate | Open contracts |
|---|---|
| $1,600 to $1,750 | 2 |
| $1,750 to $1,900 | 0 |
| $1,900 to $2,050 | 0 |
| $2,050 to $2,200 | 0 |
| $2,200 to $2,350 | 2 |
| $2,350 to $2,500 | 2 |
| $2,500 and up | 1 |
All 7 open contracts, banded by advertised weekly rate. The outer bands are open-ended so nothing falls outside the chart.
Kentucky has the 40th highest price level of the 51 states and territories the Bureau of Economic Analysis measures: 10 percent under the national average overall. The premium is concentrated in housing, at 36 percent under, while goods sit 4 percent under and services 3 percent under. That matters more than the headline number, because housing is the part a tax-free stipend is meant to cover and the rest comes out of taxed wages.
| Metro | Open contracts | Median weekly | Rent, 1 bed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bowling Green | 2 | $2,539 | $925/mo |
| Hazard | 2 | $1,614 | — |
| Lexington | 2 | $2,367 | $1,060/mo |
| Louisville | 1 | $2,255 | $1,180/mo |
Rent is the one-bedroom Fair Market Rent HUD publishes for that metro, which is what a housing stipend is trying to cover. The open-contract count beside each metro is the sample its median rests on, and outside the largest markets that sample is small: a median over one or two contracts is a single posting's rate rather than a market rate, so read the count first.
Browse the board for current PCU assignments in Kentucky.
All 42 states with PCU openings