Arts Continue to be an Economic Engine

While many industries in 2010 were struggling to recover from the recession, the nonprofit arts and culture industry continued to serve as an economic engine for the country, pumping billions of dollars into the national economy, a new report from the Americans for the Arts finds.

Based on data from 9,721 arts and culture organizations representing all fifty states, the report, Arts & Economic Prosperity IV (378 pages, PDF), found that in 2010, the year the study was conducted, the arts and culture sector generated $135.2 billion in economic activity, including $61.1 billion in spending by nonprofit organizations — 3 percent less than in the pre-recession year of 2005 — and $74.1 billion in spending by arts audiences. In addition, the sector helped support 4.1 million full-time jobs and generated $22.3 billion in revenues for local, state, and federal governments, or five times as much as their collective appropriations.