Home - What is the Creative Economy? - Our Results
Facts and Figures - Outreach Activities - Resources and Links

What is the Creative Economy?

The creative economy includes individuals, organizations and enterprises whose assets are creatively based. 

Examples of professions that encompass the creative economy include: architects, artists, authors, dancers, editors, graphic, interior, web and game designers, arts and humanities teachers, musicians, singers, translators, and many more.

Facts about the Creative Economy

• America's nonprofit arts industry generates $166.2 billion in economic activity every year, resulting in $29.6 billion in federal, state, and local tax revenues.
  Source: Americans for the Arts, Arts & Economic Prosperity III: The Economic Impact of Nonprofit Arts and Culture Organizations and Their Audiences, 2007.

• The creative sector, employs 38 million Americans, or 30 percent of all employed people.
  Source: Richard Florida, The Rise of the Creative Class, 2002.

• Americans donated more than $13.99 billion to the arts in 2004 through individual giving, estates, foundations and corporations.  Source: Giving USA Foundation, Giving USA, 2005.

• More than half of U.S. adults participate in cultural tourism. In 2002, cultural tourists spent an average of $166 more per trip than tourists not participating in cultural activities.
  Source: Travel Industry Association of America, The Historic/Cultural Traveler, 2003.

• In fiscal year 2008, state arts agencies invested $359.6 million in creating and sustaining arts infrastructures in communities across the nation.  Source: National Assembly of State Arts Agencies, Legislative Appropriations Annual Survey, FY 2008.

Creative economy courtesy of the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies: www.nasaa-arts.org