‘Show’ us the money in city
$110B arts industry isn’t all raves
New York isn’t starving for artists who help drive the city’s economy.
The so-called “creative” sector employs nearly 300,000 New Yorkers and spurs $110 billion in activity, accounting for one-eighth of the city’s annual economic output, a new report found.
The sector includes the performing arts, advertising, film, television, museum, art galleries, publishing, design, fashion and architecture, on top of thousands of independent or freelancing creatives, who are paid $30 billion annually in earnings, according to an analysis of 2017 figures from Comptroller Scott Stringer released Friday.
Just 3% of all U.S. jobs are located in the city, while 12% of the country’s creative sector employment are in the five boroughs.
About a quarter of all creative sector jobs in New York were in film and TV, the most of any other industry, followed by 16% in advertising and just over 11% in publishing. About a tenth of all New Yorkers in the creative sector are independent artists.
“From Broadway to local theater groups, film studios to artists’ studios, New York City’s creative sector is as much a core industry of our city as banking, real estate, or law,” Stringer said in a statement. “We need to invest in strengthening the creative economy to support and recognize it as the engine of opportunity that it is.”
Many creative workers must contend with “volatile” employment, helping add to economic insecurity, the report notes.
About a third of artists based in the city didn’t have active employment in 2017, and neither did 21% of musicians. More than half of actors and nearly half of musicians, dancers and entertainers work part-time. And 36% of the city’s creative workers were self-employed, lacking access to health insurance and other benefits.
But the report also paints a picture of large racial disparities in the city’s creative industries.
Even though more than two-thirds of city residents are people of color, they only account for 34% of workers with creative jobs. Creative workers of color earn 91 cents to the dollar their white counterparts earn.
Stringer said the city should create a task force on the sector, as well as create more Cultural Districts to promote neighborhood resources. He also wants to incentivize the conversion of industrial space — like manufacturing or commercial properties — into creative sector space, as well as increase the use of existing public space in school dance studios, music rooms, theaters and visual arts rooms.