The National Endowment for the Arts just released "Artists in the Workforce: 1990-2005," the first nationwide look at artists’ demographic and employment patterns in the 21st century." Artists in the Workforce" analyzes working artist trends, gathering new statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau to provide a comprehensive overview of this workforce segment, its maturation over the past 30 years, along with detailed information on specific artist occupations.
As a leader among artist-centered organizations, the Alliance is thrilled to have this much-needed data to provide important benchmarks on how we as a field are supporting today’s artists. Our recent work toward researching what artists are served by artists’ communities and what artists are left out depends on this kind of data for assessment of our work. The NEA report comes at a time when much research is focused on arts economic impact data such as ticket sales, tourism dollars, etc., with too few advocacy tools to empower individual artists and those that support them in making the case for greater support and artist-centered policy.
"Artists now play a huge but mostly unrecognized role in the new American economy of the 21st century," said NEA Chairman Dana Gioia. "This report shows how important American artists are to both our nation’s cultural vitality and economic prosperity of our communities."
Numbering almost two million, artists are one of the largest classes of workers in the nation, only slightly smaller than the U.S. military’s active-duty and reserve personnel (2.2 million). Artists now represent 1.4 percent of the U.S. labor force. While Artists in the Workforce is not an economic impact study, it does report the average income of various artist categories. Based on those statistics, artists earn an aggregate income of approximately $70 billion annually. The study compares artists with the labor force in general, reporting on factors such as geographic distribution, racial, ethnic, and gender composition, employment status, age, and education level.
Read key findings and download or order the report for free from the NEA website.