Arts-related businesses make up 4.3 percent of all the companies in the United States, and employ almost 3 million people, according to this study commissioned by Americans for the Arts that I received a few days ago.
The study is the most detailed account yet of their economic impact on our daily life. The New York metropolitan area (including Northern NJ, CT and PA) ranks No. 1 nationally in arts-related businesses, with nearly 55,000. Our area, as expected, ranks fourth, after LA and San Francisco Bay Area, but ahead of Chicago.
So what we in the trenches have been hollering about for years has been now empirically quantified. We have one of the top art scenes in the nation here and yet we are (at least in the visual arts) woefully ignored by the mainstream press.
In fact, according to this article in the Washington Post written as a result of the study, our area art related non-profits employs more people than the legal profession - now that's a shocker!
The DC area nonprofit arts industry provides $1.24 billion in direct expenditures and supports nearly 26,000 full-time jobs and is responsible for nearly $896 million in personal income for area residents.
What makes this study even more important, is the simple fact that our area is perhaps the smallest (in terms of population) of any of the top 20 areas. So that means to me that we then have the highest concentration, per capita, of these cultural assets.
When will the Washington Post and the Washington Times (not to mention any of our local TV stations) get this point? Here's the list:
|
|
No comments:
Post a Comment
Comments