Negotiating pay when I have been out of work after 5 years as a nurse's aide

I have been out of work for 24 weeks and feel pressure to accept less. I have read a lot of threads here and could not find my exact situation. I do not want to price myself out.

Thanks for writing this out. I went through something close to it last year, and it settled down once I kept a simple log of every call and form.

I gave a range based on local postings and said I was flexible depending on the whole package. They did not push back.