Investing in the Creative Workforce for a Strong Economy
On February 12, 2025, CRNY held an event at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York titled Investing in the Creative Workforce for a Strong Economy. David Erickson, Senior Vice President at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, has long recognized that a key to mitigating “downstream” issues of poverty and poor health is investing in a strong arts and culture ecosystem “upstream.” In New York State, arts and culture has been a $150+ billion enterprise, a major economic driver in the state and the core of our communities. Arts and culture are essential to what makes New York New York.
While there is some understanding that the arts and culture sector supports broader economic growth, the efforts around supporting that sector tend to focus on arts and culture institutions—theaters, museums, performance centers. What’s often left out of these efforts is the artists themselves, the key drivers of a strong creative economy. The convening’s goal was to reframe a discussion about the creative economy to focus on artists and creative workers as the main drivers of the economy while highlighting their essential labor in communities as contributors to community health and wealth.
CRNY’s Sarah Calderón kicked off the event with a one-on-one conversation with Dr. Maria Rosario Jackson, national urban planning and cultural policy expert and former chair of the National Endowment for the Arts. Together they probed what the ‘creative economy’ really means. Dr. Jackson called for a more expansive understanding of what gets included in the creative economy, going beyond traditional concepts of ‘arts and culture’ to acknowledge and include the critical roles that artists play in community health, education, and government. They discussed unique skills that artists can bring to bear in a multitude of cross-sector settings, and the importance of artists’ solidarity with broader workers’ movements.
The event continued with a lively panel discussion between Asali DeVan Ecclesiastes, Executive Director, Ashé Cultural Arts Center; Moy Eng, CEO Emeritus, Community Arts Stabilization Trust (CAST); Marissa Manitowabi, Master Culture Teacher, Stanley Huff Cultural Center at the Seneca Nation; Kerry A. McLean, Vice President, Community Development, WHEDco; and moderated by Ascala Tsegaye, Community Development and Cultural Strategist and Former Deputy Chair, National Endowment for the Arts. These artists and organizational leaders discussed how artists show up as workers across sectors, different models of artist employment, and the conditions required to support artists as a creative workforce. Eng spoke passionately about the importance of hiring artists and the “superpowers” that artists are able to bring to their work, including, “deep listening, curiosity, openness, collaboration, and the stellar ability to look at and examine problems and come up with new, innovative solutions.” Ecclesiastes pushed further, noting, “The ethics of artists are so often the best of us, forcing us to address the ways we fail people. Artists have an accountability to humanity that we all should be tapping into.” The conversation continued, examining how in order to thrive, artists need financial stability, affordable spaces to live and work, and flexibility in their schedules so they have time to stay connected to their artistic practice.
Chief Baba Neil Clarke provided a rousing drum and poetry performance after speaking about his time as a CRNY artist employment program artist where he said, “I’ve been a touring, performing artist for probably 50 years. Without my wife’s insurance [and prior to CRNY’s program], I didn’t have healthcare as an artist. I think that’s significant.”
The convening dove deeper into economics with a discussion between Gustavo Herrera, CEO, Arts for LA and Member, California Creative Economy Workgroup, and Jose Serrano-McClain, Partner, HR&A, moderated by Adam Davidson, co-founder of NPR’s Planet Money. The group specifically delved into the creative economies in California and New York, and how the arts and culture sector is a major driver for the broader economy in both states. The trio discussed the importance of dedicated policy initiatives such as California’s developing creative economy plan and the policy playbook that CRNY partnered with HR&A to develop for New York State. One of the interesting flashpoints of the conversation was when Davidson posited whether New York City and Los Angeles were “superstar creative cities” that should serve as the models for other places. Serrano-McClain pushed back, highlighting a recent Center for an Urban Future report that shows how “the growth in jobs in the arts and culture sector Upstate has outpaced job growth in every other sector.”
The final conversation of the day focused on the future of the creative workforce, innovations and policy solutions that can support artists’ lives and livelihoods. Shelly Steward, Chief Research Officer, The Workers Lab moderated a panel between Lexi Gervis, VP, Government Affairs and Public Policy, SteadyIQ; Rafael Espinal, Executive Director, Freelancers Union; and Alia Jones-Harvey, Associate Commissioner of Workforce Development and Educational Initiatives, NYC Mayor’s Office of Media & Entertainment. One of the challenges facing many artists is that they are often gig workers, so they are not eligible for the protections that come with a W2 income, such as employer-sponsored health insurance, disability insurance, and unemployment benefits. The group discussed models for ‘portable’ benefits (not tied to a single W2 employer), the role of unions and cooperatives, and initiatives such as the Freelance Isn’t Free act. CRNY’s Artist and Cultural Worker Bill of Rights builds on these efforts. The panelists also addressed how Artificial Intelligence can act as both a support and a threat to artists, and various workforce development efforts to upskill and reskill creative workers.
CRNY’s executive director Sarah Calderón closed the event with a call to action around a series of specific creative workforce policy recommendations, and a reminder of the essential role and power of artists, especially in moments of turmoil and uncertainty. As Calderón noted, “We are reimagining a system where artists are at the center… artists and culture bearers have helped us imagine a new future.”
For further reading on the event’s conversations, we highly recommend Arts for LA CEO Gustavo Herrera’s provocative reflection, Reframing Creative Economy Advocacy, that pushes against the typical ‘trickle down’ system of arts funding. “The future of Creative Economy Advocacy centers the artist and creative worker,” he writes, “and in doing so we will build a healthier local and national economy.”
Full details and video of Investing in the Creative Workforce for a Strong Economy are here: https://www.newyorkfed.org/newsevents/events/regional_outreach/2025/0212-2025