Study Shows Growth of Arts Groups Is Outpacing Inflation

A new study reports that museums, theater troupes, orchestras and other nonprofit arts organizations around the U.S. grew at twice the rate of inflation between 1992 and 2000, and now add up to a $53.2-billion-a-year industry.

The study, based on surveys of 3,000 organizations and 40,000 audience members in 91 cities, was commissioned by Americans for the Arts, a nonprofit organization with offices in Washington, D.C., and New York, paid for by American Express and conducted by economists from the Georgia Institute of Technology.

“People in general don’t have any idea of the size of this nonprofit industry, or its impact,” said Robert L. Lynch, president and chief executive of Americans for the Arts. Titled “Arts & Economic Prosperity,” the new study was designed to detail the economic spillover of activities by nonprofit arts groups. It estimates that nonprofit arts groups spent $53.2 billion in fiscal 2000 on expenses from rent to salaries to utilities. That spending, the study contends, in turn prompted $80.8 billion in additional spending by audiences at hotels, restaurants, souvenir stands and elsewhere--$22.87 per audience member.

A similar 1994 study, based on 1992 data, estimated the yearly spending of nonprofit arts groups nationwide at $36.8 billion. The new results show a 45% increase, but do not account for inflation of roughly 22% between 1992 and 2000.

In California, the areas examined by the study included Glendale (population 194,973; nonprofit arts group spending of $3.8 million in 2000), Pasadena (133,936; $6 million) and San Diego County (2.8 million, $122.8 million). Researchers said they avoided the cities of Los Angeles, New York and Chicago “to avoid inflating the national estimates” of economic impact.