Hospitals and clinics across the Las Vegas valley are continuing to deal with staffing shortages across nearly every level of care, from doctors and nurses to critical support staff. While some progress is being made, medical professionals say the region still has a long way to go to meet the needs of its growing population.

The pay gap—or the difference in earnings between men and women—persists throughout the U.S., with full-time working women earning just 81 cents for every dollar earned by men in 2024. A recent business.com analysis of U.S. Census data shows Nevada’s full-time workforce faring better than all but Vermont, but Henderson remains a major outlier. The city had the 15th largest gap in the study, with an average female resident earning $19,645 less than her male counterpart. That’s about 2.5 times greater than Las Vegas’ $8,172 and Nevada’s $7,805, and consistent with a 2024 UNLV Lincy Institute and Brookings Mountain West study ranking it 21st. Let’s take a closer look at these trends in honor of Equal Pay Day on March 26.

Today, health care is the fastest-growing sector in the regional economy having added more than 42,000 jobs since 2016. Yet, despite this growth we only have 70 percent of our expected health care jobs. Consequently, we continue to have poor health and social outcomes and export tens of millions of our health care dollars to out-of-state providers annually.

Southern Nevada has made big strides when it comes to health care in the region, adding a medical school at UNLV and hosting two private schools for doctors. But it still has a long way to go, and a lot of money required to get there.

The Lincy Institute at UNLV reports that Nevada is still missing about 30 percent of the healthcare jobs it should have. A lack of residency spots is pushing many newly trained doctors out of the state.

Using data in the Mental Health America report, Brookings Mountain West at UNLV breaks out some of the findings with a more regional emphasis in its report on the “State of Mental Health in the Mountain West.” The Brookings analysis included metrics for major depressive episodes, mental illness, substance use disorders, suicidal idiation, and unmet treatment for both adult and youth population.

A new global urban-preferences study suggests that many young Las Vegans view the city as a temporary stop rather than a long-term home. Other data show that Las Vegas experiences significant churn. Census estimates indicate that about 16 percent of city residents moved within the past year, a rate higher than the Nevada average. A Lincy Institute fact sheet from UNLV, citing Opportunity Insights data, found that from 1994 to 2018 one in three young adults raised in the Las Vegas region eventually moved to another state. Independent mobility studies have also pointed to a sharp reversal in migration patterns after the pandemic boom, including periods of negative net migration.

A film tax bill described by opponents as “the largest corporate handout in Nevada history” squeaked by the Assembly on Sunday with a bare-minimum majority of votes. It now moves to the state Senate where a similar close battle is expected. A number of critics who opposed the bill cited an October 2025 economic analysis by The Lincy Institute at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas on whether film tax credits are wise for state governments to pursue.

State lawmakers wrapped up another day of Nevada’s special session Sunday, with hours of debate focused on a film studio bill that would bring tax credits to Las Vegas. The Nevada Studio Infrastructure Jobs and Workforce Training Act, known as the Summerlin Studios bill, survived the state Assembly and led to extensive discussion on Assembly Bill 5 in the Senate.

For years, those looking to expand Nevada’s film tax credit program have touted their potential to bring jobs, diversify the state’s economy and even provide funding for pre-K programs. But typically lost in the discussion is the fact that few Nevada film tax credits are used by the film industry at all.

A government shutdown is underway, and NV Senator Catherine Cortez Masto voted with Republicans to avoid it. David Damore, Executive Director of The Lincy Institute & Brookings Mountain West, discusses this and Governor Lombardo’s call for a special legislative session. Plus, the work a NV teenager did on a newly passed antisemitism bill and how the Raiders are celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month.

Gov. Joe Lombardo recently called for a special legislative session during which lawmakers might revisit a measure such as Assembly Bill 238 from the 2025 session. That proposal authorized up to $1.5 billion in transferable film tax credits against the financially strained state general fund. Supporters, after failing to pass the legislation last spring, are now rebranding this as a “jobs bill.” Based on Nevada’s previous evaluations and the evidence I’ve collected from other states and national experts, significant job creation seems unlikely.