PROVIDENCE – There were 1,756 501(c)(3) nonprofits in Rhode Island in 2016, employing on average 68,348 people, and who were paid a combined $3.4 billion, according to data released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Wednesday.
The same report calculated the annual average wage of a nonprofit employee in Rhode Island to be $49,667. By comparison, the average annual wage in Rhode Island for private-sector employees in 2016 was $49,570.
Nonprofit establishments made up 4.9 percent of the 36,153 private establishments in Rhode Island in 2016, yet employed 16.5 percent of the private workforce, out of a total of 414,410 workers.
Nationally, the average annual nonprofit wage was $51,909, out of a total of $638.1 billion. The BLS calculated that 12.3 million people worked at 501(c)(3) establishments in 2016.
The largest nonprofit sector in Rhode Island in 2016 was health care and social assistance, employing 39,634 for an average annual wage of $50,954 at 687 establishments.
The nonprofit sector with the highest average annual wage in 2016 in Rhode Island was ambulatory health care services, paying an annual wage per employee of $70,050. The sector, on average, employed 6,352 in 2016.
Nationally, the highest paying nonprofit sector was the securities, commodity contracts, and other financial investments and related activities, which paid $131,186 per worker on average in 2016.
Chris Bergenheim is the PBN web editor. He can be reached at Bergenheim@PBN.com.
