Artists have long played a critical role in establishing NYC’s place as a global cultural capital and have made great contributions to the city’s vibrancy and economy. In fact, the creative sector accounts for approximately one in every eight dollars of economic activity in the city and employs over 270k workers as of 2022. In recent years however, the lack of affordable housing has begun to pose a serious threat to the future of city’s cultural life and economy.

RPA recently analyzed the 2022 Portrait of New York State Artists Survey conducted by Creatives Rebuild New York (CRNY) to gain a better understanding of the current state of artist’s housing needs in NYC. Our analysis of the survey shows that New York City’s artist population is younger, lower-income, and more diverse than the city as a whole. A majority of artists surveyed were facing economic insecurity. This was especially true for younger artists, those with lower incomes, and Black and Hispanic artists.

These findings show that the artist population is not a monolith, and that there are particularly vulnerable populations within the broader artist category. These populations have an acute need for affordable housing to maintain the diversity and vibrancy of the city’s cultural sector.

Introduction

Artists need stable and affordable housing to create their work, but New York City’s housing crisis has made finding those spaces practically impossible for the vast majority of artists. In addition to the citywide affordable housing crisis, artists face unique barriers to securing affordable housing. Artistic income is typically characterized by low wages, multiple sources of income, and fluctuating earnings, which can make artists more vulnerable to emergency costs. This non-traditional income stream can also make it more difficult for artists to secure affordable housing through the City’s programs, which require verified income within a particular range for different housing options. This system is easiest for single-employer workers with consistent monthly earnings. People with more uneven incomes, such as low-income artists, can have more difficulty showing they fit the proper income requirements and qualify for this housing.

New York City has long led the way in developing affordable artist housing, recognizing both the vital role artists play in the city’s cultural and economic life and the unique challenges they face in finding stable housing. The Westbeth Artist Housing community has provided artists, including Vin Diesel, Robert De Niro Sr., Paul Benjamin, and Diane Arbus, with affordable living and working spaces since it was constructed in 1970 using funding from the National Endowment for the Arts and a mortgage from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and work recently began on a renovation funded by New York State. Manhattan Plaza, located in the Theatre District, was completed in 1977 using funding from New York State’s Mitchell-Lama housing program and the federal Section 8 housing program. The building currently houses 3,500 residents, 70% of which are mandated to be working in the performing arts with below median income. It has been home to notable performance artists such as Alicia Keys, Timothée Chalamet, and Larry David.

Data and Findings

It is easy to gain a false perception of who makes up the ranks of artists in New York City. According to a 2016 survey by CUNY’s Guttman College, 80.5% of artists represented by the top 45 commercial galleries in New York City were white, and 70% were men. However, as our analysis of the Portrait of New York State Artists Survey shows, gallery artists are not representative of the city’s artist population as a whole. The Portrait of New York State Artists Survey was launched by CRNY in February 2022. CRNY conducted the survey in order to gain insight into the needs, circumstances, and experiences of artists across the state. Artists were invited to take the survey upon submission of applications for CRNY’s Guaranteed Income for Artists or Artist Employment Programs, and a public version of the survey was also made available. Overall, 13,337 artists completed the survey before it was closed on May 31, 2022.

Our analysis was conducted on the 77.8% of survey respondents who resided in New York City. We compared the results from the Artist Survey to American Community Survey 2018-2022 5-year data (ACS) from New York City, looking at several different demographic variables. First, we found that the artists surveyed were much younger on average than the city as a whole, with more than twice the percentage of artists in the 25-34 age bracket. Second, we found that artists surveyed had far lower incomes than the city as a whole, with more than 50% earning under $24k. Third, we found that artists surveyed were on average less white, more black, more multiracial, and less hispanic or latino than the city as a whole. Lastly, we also found that nearly half of artists surveyed identified as LGBTQ+, compared to approximately 14% of the city as a whole as of 2023.

We also examined variables concerning the economic picture of surveyed artists. We found that most artists did not have a full time job, and instead mostly relied on income from gig/contract work and part time jobs. We also found that the majority of artists (60%) did not receive additional income beyond their employment. Surveyed artists faced a high degree of financial uncertainty, with only 34% responding that they could pay for a $400 emergency without using credit, and 74% responding that they were currently carrying debt. 42.7% of respondents stated that their housing circumstances were stable and meeting their needs. However, when we conducted a cross-tabular analysis of the responses to this question, comparing housing stability by income level, the results were starker. As expected, we found that housing stability increases as income level rises, with only 42% of artists with an income of less than $25k reporting that they had a stable housing situation, compared to 79% of artists with an income of more than $100k.

Housing and economic stability varied across racial and age groupings. Only 26.9% of survey respondents ages 18-24 reported that they could pay for a $400 emergency out of pocket, compared to 33.9% for the 25-34 age group and 37.8% for the 35-44 group. When broken down by race, the gap was much wider, with 47.4% and 51.6% of white and Asian respondents respectively reporting they could pay for a $400 emergency, compared to only 19.5% and 26.8% of Black and Hispanic respondents.

Racial composition also varied by age group, with a larger proportion of Black and Hispanic artists in the younger age groups. This loss of diversity with age among artists may demonstrate the impacts of racial differences in housing stability and vulnerability to emergency costs over time; if Black and Hispanic artists are more vulnerable in general to emergencies, it would more difficult for them to sustain working in the arts over the course of a career as their white and Asian counterparts in New York City.

Conclusion

Our analysis of the 2022 Portrait of New York State Artists Survey demonstrates that surveyed New York City artists are on the whole, younger, lower income, more likely to identify as LGBTQ+, and more racially diverse than the city as a whole. In concurrence with previous research, our findings show that artists are facing mounting economic pressures, especially when it comes to securing housing, with Black, Hispanic, younger, and lower income artists facing more acute crises. These findings suggest that more targeted housing interventions may be necessary to maintain the diversity of the city’s arts community. Further attention should also be paid to the unique economic and legal barriers that artists face to securing housing through existing processes.