CHICAGO: The Mellon Foundation has today released the National Survey of Artists, a study conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago, a nonpartisan research organization. It sheds new light on the lives, work, and economic realities of creative workers and provides insight for funders, policymakers, and arts organizations working to strengthen support systems for artists nationwide, amid shifting economic, professional, and social conditions.
Drawing on responses from a nationally representative sample of artists and culture bearers, the study set out to offer one of the most comprehensive portraits to date of how creative workers sustain their practices. It expands national understanding of who counts as an artist, beyond those who earn a living solely from their art, while revealing the complex ways creative workers build their livelihoods, often across multiple jobs, and the unique financial challenges they face.
“Artists are essential to how we understand and shape the world around us, yet we have long lacked a complete picture of who they are and how they make their lives and work possible,” said Mellon Foundation program director for arts and culture Deana Haggag in a statement. “By expanding our definition of what it means to be an artist and illuminating the diverse conditions under which they live and work, we hope this study helps the field imagine systems and possibilities that can more fully sustain creative life in the United States.”
Key findings show that artists across the United States continue to face significant financial insecurity and complex working lives. More than half (57 percent) of artists reported being somewhat or very worried about at least one form of financial vulnerability, such as affording food, housing, medical care, or utilities, with 22 percent concerned about having enough to eat and 32 percent about covering medical costs in the month ahead.
The survey also highlights the multifaceted nature of artistic employment: 34 percent of artists are fully self-employed, 50 percent are self-employed in their primary job, and 11 percent juggled three or more jobs in the past year. Close to one-third (28 percent) identify as teaching artists, another 28 percent provide unpaid care for a loved one with a health condition or disability, and 8 percent have served in the U.S. military.
The report arrives as inflation and the rise of gig and contract work are reshaping the artistic world, and artists continue to be affected by income instability and limited access to benefits. It provides the field with evidence to inform smarter investments and public policy, and to support systems that can strengthen creative work for the long term. Together, Mellon and NORC invite policymakers, funders, researchers, and arts leaders to use these findings to better understand and support the nation’s artists. A public use dataset is here.
“We’re proud to partner with Mellon on this groundbreaking effort to better understand artists as workers,” said Gwendolyn Rugg, senior research scientist at NORC and lead author of the report, in a statement. “Artists contribute immeasurably to our communities, yet we have only ever had very limited data on them which by and large did not reflect the full population of working artists and culture bearers in the U.S. With the publication of this study, we now have for the first time a more expansive national portrait of who artists are, how they live and work, and what challenges they experience. This lays the groundwork for creating programs and policies that are truly responsive to artists’ needs.”
