November 17, 2009

An Overview of the Nonprofit & Charitable Sector

In November 2009, the Congressional Research Service released an overview of the non-profit and charitable sector. Non-profit organizations that served households in the United States generated about $751 billion in output—about five percent of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product in 2008—according to their tax forms filed in 2009. Overall, the non-profit sector included 1.5 million registered organizations that provided eight percent of U.S. wages and nearly 10% of jobs. Within the non-profit sector, 63.5% of organizations were tax-exempt charities that reported $1.4 billion in revenue and $2.6 billion in assets. Tax-exempt charities have been estimated to employ more than seven percent of the U.S. work force.