Estimating quarterly employment in charitable nonprofit organizations from tax records and business registers

Abstract

Timely estimates of employment in nonprofit organizations can be created by matching information collected directly from the sector to other databases. Coverage of employment reported by nonprofit entities is established for 2003 by matching IRS Forms 990/990-EZ and a Registry of nonprofits to the BLS Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW). The match reveals nonresponse and match errors that are overcome by imputation, editing, and modeling. Estimates of employment in nonprofit charitable organizations are substantially larger than prior reports. As many nonprofits and some nonprofit employees are excluded from the QCEW universe, an alternative approach to estimating employment would match the Form 990/990-EZ and the Registry to IRS Forms 941 and W-2. This alternative became available in 2005 and may be more timely and complete than the QCEW match.