Knowledgebase

Why does nonprofit employment as published by the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey differ from NCCS estimates?   (link)

We have investigated this survey in some depth and suggest the NCCS estimates of nonprofit employment remain the best available at this time.

The primary purpose of the survey is to arrive at estimates of the proportion of different types of employers who provide different types of health benefits to their employees. The agency responsible for the survey emphasizes percentages and proportions in its tables, and encourages users to provide their own base numbers, which it acknowledges may be better than their own. Employment is a good example of such a base number.

In line with this purpose, the questionnaire states that estimated employment is satisfactory, and the question wording refers to employment during a typical pay period. We believe this is the primary source of difference from NCCS nonprofit employment estimates.

For additional details and other potential sources of difference we investigated, see the attached file.