For almost a year after the first March 2020 lockdowns in the United States, economic activity across the arts sector largely ground to a halt, as shutdowns hit employment and revenue at museums, theaters, and art spaces nationwide. The pandemic’s effect on the arts has been clear, but new data released last week by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) puts the scale of the damage into sharper focus: From 2019 to 2020, the arts economy contracted at nearly twice the pace of the US economy overall.
The arts encompass a broad range of local, institutional, and national organizations, and most artists in the US are self-employed or work as independent contractors. The NEA said arts and cultural production dropped 6.4% when adjusted for inflation, compared with a 3.4% decline across the economy as a whole. The value added by self-employed artists, writers, and performers fell 20.6%, and the agency’s analysis found that unemployment in arts and culture industries jumped from 3.7% in 2019 to 10.3% in 2020.
According to the NEA, arts and cultural industries regained some momentum in 2021, but they still have not returned to 2019 levels of income or activity. Several independently owned arts and cultural venues that shut down in 2020 never reopened after suffering losses from which they could not recover, while others survived only through government subsidies and community support.
With theaters and live performance venues closed for nearly a year, the film and performing arts industries were among the hardest hit. The film industry lost about 136,000 workers when COVID-19 brought production to a stop, and although many studios have since returned to in-person work, many safety protocols remain in place. Government arts and cultural contributions, meanwhile, held steady during the pandemic.
Despite lower production, arts and culture still added $876.7 billion to the national GDP in 2020, down from $919.7 billion in 2019. The findings also show that third-quarter performing arts revenue rose from $834 million in 2020 to $1.7 billion in 2021, though that figure remained far below the $12.7 billion generated in 2019. “While arts and cultural industries and workers nationwide have sustained heavy losses, the sector continues to play an outsized role in the U.S. economy — as the new data demonstrate,” NEA Chair Dr. Maria Rosario Jackson said in a statement.
Jackson also noted a significant shift within the field: the summer of self-isolation and the rise of remote work accelerated a broad move toward digital arts programming. Gallery openings and live performances that had once been strictly in person became accessible from home, and this growth in digital media engagement boosted economic value by 14.3% between 2019 and 2020, supporting 12,000 salaried workers. The Arts and Cultural Production Satellite Account (ACPSA) also compiled fact sheets showing the arts and culture sector’s contribution to local economies in all 50 states in 2020.
In New York alone, the arts contributed $126.7 billion, equal to 7.3% of the state’s overall economic value, while independent artists contributed approximately $5 million overall. Although COVID-19’s impact on the creative economy has been severe, the NEA sees sustained value added as evidence of progress and a reason to press for stronger support for the sector. “The NEA is committed to participating as a key partner in the recovery of this sector, recognizing not only its economic value, but also the arts’ capacity to transform the lives of individuals and communities in other ways, contributing to health and well-being, and overall resilience,” Jackson added.
