Nonprofit pay and benefits: estimates from the National Compensation Survey

A BLS study reveals that, in the aggregate, workers at nonprofit businesses earn a pay premium compared with their for-profit counterparts. Detailed analyses, however, show a more nuanced picture: using wages as the pay measure indicates a slight wage disadvantage for management, professional, and related workers, and a wage advantage for service workers, at nonprofits and wage parity between nonprofit and for-profit sales and office workers; using total compensation as the pay measure indicates compensation parity between nonprofit and for-profit businesses for management, professional, and related workers and for sales and office workers and a compensation premium for nonprofit service workers.