New Data Show Economic Impact of COVID-19 on Arts & Culture Sector

From National Endowment for the Arts –

Tennessee Experienced Severe Losses to Arts and Cultural “Value‐Added”

New data released on March 15, 2022, by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) provide insights into the impact on the arts and cultural sector by COVID-19. The Arts and Cultural Production Satellite Account (ACPSA) tracks the annual economic impact of arts and cultural production from 35 industries, both commercial and nonprofit. These data describe the national and state-level contributions of the arts and cultural sector to the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP) in 2020, the first year of the pandemic.

The arts economy in Tennessee was among the hardest hit in 2020. In Tennessee, the value‐added from arts and cultural industries fell by 17.6 percent.

As a share of total gross state product (GSP), value-added by performing arts organizations is roughly three times greater than performing arts’ value added to national GDP. (This ratio is referred to as a location quotient.)

Because the performing arts play an outsized role in Tennessee’s arts economy, Tennessee was particularly affected by 2020 contractions in these industries. In Tennessee, the value added by performing arts organizations and performing arts presenters fell by 57.3 percent and 72.0 percent.

In 2020, arts and culture added $876.7 billion, or 4.2 percent, to national GDP. Between 2019 and 2020, the U.S. arts economy shrank at nearly twice the rate of the economy as a whole: arts and cultural production fell by 6.4 percent when adjusted for inflation, compared with a 3.4 decline in the overall economy. While the size and diversity of the arts and culture sector helped it to remain a major contributor to the economy, certain arts industries saw enormous declines.

Learn more: https://www.arts.gov/about/news/2022/new-data-show-economic-impact-covid-19-arts-culture-sector