Economic Growth In The Nonprofit Sector

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Literature Review
In the period between the ends of the nineteenth century and the advent of the Great Depression, American advertising was transformed from a marginal, stigmatized practice to the expansive professions employed by almost every business concern with regional or national aspirations. Ritzer (1998, 14-15) argues, “Consumption is not merely a frenzy of buying a profusion of commodities consumed is an order of significations in a panoply of objects; a system or code of signs.” In fact, consumer spending is about 70 percent of the nation's Gross Domestic Product, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. A 2012 study headed by Northwestern University psychologist Galen V. Bodenhausen showed that thinking of people as consumers
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The nonprofit sector employed over 14.4 million people (estimated) in 2013. Many of these employees are concentrated in the health services and education fields. The nonprofit sector has experienced a period of sustained growth over the previous decade. As Table 1 demonstrates, the number of employees increased 14.0 percent from the 2003 level of 12.7 million employees. This represents nearly a percentage point increase in the nonprofit share of the economy, from 9.7 percent in 2003 to 10.6 percent in 2013. A key driver of this employment growth is the increased demand for healthcare services, which is driving growth in hospitals and healthcare organizations. In particular, more than half of all nonprofit workers are employed by the healthcare and social assistance industry (54.8 percent), which includes hospitals, mental health centers, crisis hotlines, blood banks, soup kitchens, senior centers, and similar organizations. In 2013, this industry employed over a million more nonprofit workers than it did in 2003, showing the largest absolute growth in the number of employees of any nonprofit Subsector. Between 2003 and 2007, the years leading up to the recent recession, employment in the nonprofit sector and the business sector grew at a similar rate, both slightly higher than the growth of government employment. Yet, during the recession—from 2007 to 2010—growth in the nonprofit sector outpaced that of government and business employment: nonprofit employment rose 3.5 percent, while government employment remained relatively flat (1.2 percent growth) and business employment fell by 8.2 percent. With the end of the recession, however, the U.S. economy has been rebounding. From 2010 to 2013, nonprofit growth in employment (3.6 percent) was surpassed by renewed growth in business (6.7 percent). On the government side, employment has declined