Wages in the Nonprofit Sector: Management, Professional, and Administrative Support Occupations
"In 2007, there were more than 1.64 million nonprofit organizations in the United States.1 The nonprofit sector has expanded in terms of number of organizations and number of paid employees. In 1994, there were more than 1.1 million nonprofit organizations in the United States,2 employing about 5.4 million people, or 4.4 percent of all workers. By 2007, nonprofits employed 8.7 million workers, or 5.9 percent of all workers.3 Health professionals, educators, other professionals, health technicians, administrative support workers, and service occupations account for the majority of paid workers in the nonprofit sector.

Considering the growth of the nonprofit sector, it is interesting to compare the wage rates of workers in nonprofits with those of their counterparts in private industry as a whole5 and in State and local government. The National Compensation Survey (NCS) provides a source of recent data for making this comparison. Separate wage estimates for full-time workers in private nonprofit establishments were published in the annual wage publication National Compensation Survey: Occupational Earnings in the United States, 2007.6 The NCS now provides average hourly wage estimates for full-time workers employed in all private industry, the private nonprofit sector, State government, and local government by occupational group and by detailed occupation..."