You don’t have to be a mathematician to see the impact of the arts. And thank goodness, because we prefer palettes to decimal points.

 

Below are a few of our favorite numbers. 

 

The nation’s arts and culture sector—nonprofit, commercial, education—was a $1.02 trillion industry in 2021, a new high-water mark. This represents 4.4% of the nation’s economy—a larger share of GDP than powerhouse sectors such as transportation, construction, and agriculture, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA).

The 2021 figure is a 14.4% increase from a revised $888 billion in 2020 (13.7% when adjusted for inflation). The arts also registered a $17.8 billion international trade surplus in 2021 (down from $28.5 billion in 2020).

In 2021, 4.9 million workers were employed to produce arts and cultural goods and services. That is less than the 2019 level of 5.2 million (pre-pandemic), but more than the first year of the pandemic (4.6 million workers in 2020).

 Arts and culture also represent an important share of state economies: California (7.7%), Utah (3.6%), Oregon (3.4%), Florida (3.1%).  

Lest we forget the pandemic’s devasting impact on the arts in 2020, an analysis by BEA/NEA reported, “In year one of the COVID-19 pandemic, few areas of the U.S. economy were harder hit than the performing arts: Performing arts presenters and performing arts companies joined oil drilling/exploration and air transportation as the steepest-declining areas of the U.S. economy in 2020. After adjusting for inflation, the value added by performing arts presenters (including festivals) fell by nearly 73 percent between 2019 and 2020.”

That the BEA measures arts and culture production in the U.S. is itself an indication of the important role of the arts in building a healthy economy and ensuring global competitiveness.

Sources: U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, Arts and Cultural Production Satellite Account, 2023.
 

 

Clearly, supporting the arts as a way to encourage creativity and innovation at companies is a growth area for arts and business partnerships.