Nearly Two-Thirds of Artists in the United States Have Lost Their Livelihoods as a Result of the Coronavirus, a New Survey Says

Ninety-five percent of artists
in the US have lost income due to the coronavirus pandemic, a new
study suggests—and nearly
two-thirds have become unemployed altogether.

The study, which taps into responses from more
than 15,000 artists and
creative workers, paints a bleak portrait of creative life in the
US in the weeks following the arrival of the epidemic. The survey
was organized by Americans for the Arts in conjunction with
Artist Relief, a coalition of seven grant-making nonprofits formed
in response to the crisis.

On average, respondents to the survey have lost $24,000 in wages because of the pandemic,
while four-fifths of those surveyed have no plan for how to recover
financially.

“This whole process has
illuminated that we need to think about artists as a labor force,
not just an economic engine,” says Deana Haggag, the president and CEO of
United States Artists, one of the founding organizations of Artist
Relief. (The other organizations are the Academy of American
Poets, Artadia, Creative Capital, the Foundation for
Contemporary Arts, the MAP Fund, and the National YoungArts
Foundation.)

“It’s not just about the money
they’re contributing. It’s how many of them there are and how their
industries are [organized],” Haggag says.

Since Artists Relief was founded, it has raised $12 million,
including $5 million in gifts
from over 20 foundations, another $5 million from the Andrew W.
Mellon Foundation, and other funds given by individual donors.
Artists Relief will draw from the pool to give $5,000 grants to 100 artists a week through
September.

The first batch was handed out
last week, while the second 100 are being awarded
today. Over 50,000
artists have applied for the grants since they were announced just
two weeks ago. 

The survey from which the new study is drawn
was made available to artists
through the grant application process. 

“As we considered what a short-
and long-term recovery might look like, we realized we needed some
tight data to understand the severity of this
crisis,” Haggag
says.

And there are already some clear conclusions that can be
drawn.

“The precarity of being a gig
worker in the United States in 2020 has been made perfectly clear.
Artists fall into that camp in the same way that domestic and
transportation workers do,” Haggag says, noting that many creative workers
earn their incomes across multiple sectors of the gig
economy. “They
are both nannies and painters, poets and restaurant
workers.”

“If we can harness this
cross-sector, then we stand a shot at a longer-term recovery that
is not about artists, but about labor rights.”

The post Nearly Two-Thirds of Artists in the United States
Have Lost Their Livelihoods as a Result of the Coronavirus, a New
Survey Says appeared first on artnet News.