States With the Most Associations Employees

ASSOCIATIONS NOW, June 2012 , Intelligence

Thanks to its robust lobbying culture, Washington, DC, is often thought of as the center of the association world in the United States. However, the District only just squeaks onto the top-10 list of states with the most association employees. Associations, in fact, are all over: Even the entire DC metropolitan area comes in a distant fourth on the list, with 89,751 employees. And the top state, California, claims only a little more than a tenth of the 1.2 million association employees in the United States in 2009.

Those facts come from the ASAE Foundation's Association 990 database, which tracks organizations that report a minimum of $200 in membership dues and have more than one employee. For more information on Association 990, visit www.asaefoundation.org.

States With the Most Association Employees

1. California: 134,319
2. New York: 131,088
3. Pennsylvania: 109,905
4. Texas: 73,569
5. Massachusetts: 69,533
6. Illinois: 62,164
7. Florida: 44,179
8. Ohio: 40,764
9. Washington: 37,683
10. Washington, DC: 36,603