Alabama State University dance students performing at the Alabama Dance Festival in January 2025. Clark Scott/Alabama Dance Festival
“We all know the trope of the starving artist,” said Gwendolyn Rugg, “But there’s actually surprisingly little reliable data out there to back this up.”
Rugg, a senior research scientist for NORC at the University of Chicago, is the lead author of a new report on artists’ livelihoods. Researchers surveyed more than 2,600 U.S. artists from across disciplines and working arrangements, asking about housing, hours worked, health benefits and income sources. The study was funded by the Mellon Foundation.
Key findings:
– 57% of artists reported being “somewhat or very worried” about affording food, housing, medical care or utilities.
– 37% received income from public assistance sources, including Social Security or state/local welfare.
– 34% are self-employed; 11% juggled three or more jobs.
– 28% provide unpaid assistance to a family member or friend due to a health condition or disability.
The NORC study isn’t the first to show that most artists aren’t in it for the money and that support systems for them are fragile. Museums are struggling; government and foundation grants can be precarious. During the pandemic, concert venues and theaters were among the first to close and the last to reopen.
Rugg said this study is the first to “paint a more comprehensive and nuanced portrait of working artists today.”
“And not having that data,” said Gonzalo Casals, who commissioned the survey when he was a senior policy fellow for arts and culture at the Mellon Foundation, “you’re invisible.” Casals is now co-director of the Culture and Arts Policy Institute, which advises New York’s arts sector.
The difficult picture for many individual artists contrasts with reports of the arts’ positive economic impact and the benefits of arts education.
Kerri-Noelle Humphrey, executive director of the Alabama Dance Council, uses available studies to raise funds and awareness about dance and its practitioners. She said many audience members “don’t understand the process. They just see the outcome.”
“Most dancers who work in a company don’t have health insurance benefits,” Humphrey said. “When you work in a career that is athletic, you would think having the ability to go to a doctor for regular care would be part of your full-time job. And it is not necessarily that way. So the data helps us quantify those stories that we see every day.”
Rugg believes “the best programs and policies are always rooted in data” but acknowledged many arts organizations have had a “data allergy” from lack of resources or will.
The full study and the survey instrument have been made publicly available so other organizations can use or replicate them. “We spent well over a year constructing this survey instrument that we feel is quite methodologically sound,” Rugg said. “We…compiled the best questions from various data sources, and then created novel questions where we saw gaps. By publicly releasing this instrument, the hope is that other folks in the field can utilize it in any way that they want going forward.”
This story was edited by Jennifer Vanasco.