“The arts contribute more than $800 billion a year to U.S. economic output, amounting to more than 4 percent of GDP,” writes Richard Florida in Thursday’s (3/28) CityLab. “That figure is based on detailed data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (part of the Department of Commerce) and the National Endowment for the Arts, summarized in a report released earlier this month. The report tracks the aggregate performance of 35 key arts-and-culture fields… Over the three-year period spanning 2014 through 2016, the average annual growth rate for the arts was 4.2 percent, compared to a 2.2 percent growth rate for the entire American economy…. The arts-and-culture economy is geographically concentrated in states including New York and California, as well as the New York and Los Angeles metros, along with Nashville and several others. But the report suggests that it has grown rapidly in … Washington, Georgia, Utah, and Nevada … for the period 2014 to 2016…. According to the report, arts and culture together make up about half of the creative economy…. My own research finds that … today’s economy is not just knowledge- or tech-based, but a broadly creative economy in which the arts and culture play a critical role.”
Posted April 3, 2019
Image: Gross Domestic Product by Industry, U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis
