The DAWN (Defend Arts Workers Now) Act
BETTING ON THE AMERICAN WORKER
POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS AND ACTION STEPS TO PROVIDE ESSENTIAL RELIEF
TO ARTS & CULTURE WORKERS AND HARNESS AMERICAN CREATIVITY IN OUR NATION’S ECONOMIC RECOVERY
The creative economy is big business because it’s local business. With 5.1 million Arts & Culture workers and over 675,000 small businesses generating $878 billion annually across 435 congressional districts, the creative economy offers the best path to help revive America’s economy across our nation 1 Creative businesses are jobs multipliers, boasting a growth rate of 4.16%, nearly double the national rate of 2.2%. Live events, broadcasting, museums, galleries, professional creative services and their related small businesses employ residents, draw tourists, and drive tax revenue, all while anchoring the hospitality, retail, tourism, and transportation industries.
The creative economy supports more U.S. jobs than the legal or public safety sectors; generates more in household income and tax revenue than agriculture and mining combined; and contributes at least $1 billion to every state’s GSP each year. 2 Despite this massive economic influence, relief and recovery efforts for the creative field have been extremely limited. Due to the nature of the creative economy, the negative impacts of COVID-19 have been disproportionate compared to the rest of the economy. Given that and the highly interdependent local commercial ecosystems that the Arts & Culture economy creates and sustains, investment here and now offers the best return on investment of any relief and recovery efforts in the wake of COVID-19.
That is why 204 chambers of commerce in all 50 states have written to Congress supporting legislation that would fund the creative economy as part of recovery. It is also why mayors from 10 major cities including Houston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and Phoenix have written a similar letter encouraging the employment of creative workers. They recognize that proportionate relief, including investments that more directly support and hire individual creative workers, promises rapid economic growth.
To be sure, the inclusion of the Shuttered Venue provisions in the second round of stimulus funding helped to, at least temporarily, save many creative businesses. That said, creative businesses are predominantly very small, solo entrepreneurships, or otherwise disadvantaged in many of the more general-purpose relief programs. Furthermore, most individual creative workers are mixed-tax-status earners who have had difficulty securing relief funding, accessing unemployment, and maintaining healthcare. Unable to perform the skilled labor they have trained for, and ineligible for most existing relief, arts and culture workers are hemorrhaging from a highly valuable sector. If that happens, the economic dominoes will fall—and fast.
This memorandum, jointly prepared by Be An #ArtsHero and Americans for the Arts, encourages support for two linked proposals developed by creative businesses and creative workers: The Defend Arts Workers Now (DAWN) Act, which focuses on relief, and the Put Creative Workers to Work Policy Plan, which focuses on recovery. These complementary sets of recommendations comprise a landmark jobs and infrastructure program that will put creative economy workers to work, thereby drastically reducing unemployment, stimulating GDP growth, and generating tax revenue through both organizational and individual spending within and beyond the creative industries. There is no recovery of the American economy without a robust recovery of the creative economy. A workforce 5.1 million strong stands ready to rebuild our communities into better, more prosperous centers of opportunity for all.
RELIEF
To address the devastating and long-term impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the creative economy, and to preserve our cultural infrastructure and capitalize on the economic potential of creative industries, this bill would authorize a significant investment in relief efforts to 1) support retention of skilled workers in the creative economy, 2) incentivize the safe reopening of arts and culture related businesses, and 3) ensure existing creative sector organizations survive the COVID-19 pandemic to catalyze economic recovery in their communities. In order to most effectively disburse funds to creative industry organizations, related businesses, and creative workers without establishing any new government agencies, and in addition to distribution via the Small Business Administration, Treasury Department, and Labor Department, approximately half of the appropriated funds should be routed through the four cultural agencies. If reasonable need is determined, a creative economy czar may be appointed to oversee this process. As such, this bill will:
Appropriate economic relief in the form of grants to eligible creative workers (operators, employees, and artists) of commercial creative businesses and non-profit cultural organizations of all sizes—including, but not limited to, live venues, recording venues, cultural spaces, and arts-related businesses—who demonstrate at least a 25 percent reduction in revenues. For immediate relief, funding at $12 billion should be distributed via the Small Business Administration, Treasury Department, and Labor Department; whereas funding for the various existing federal cultural agencies including the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and the Institute of Museum and Library Services, shall be funded at $2.5 billion per agency. Regarding the cultural agencies, this relief should require no matching component, should be provided to support general operating expenses, and should be eligible for application from all nonprofit arts and cultural organizations in the United States, regardless of previous grantee status with these agencies, with eligibility further expanded to include smaller cultural organizations and ensembles operating under fiscal sponsorship and/or organizations that do not have an audit. Regarding the NEA, at least 50% of all distributed funds designated to support artists directly, distributed through local, state, and regional arts agencies, eligible artist service organizations, or other eligible re-granting initiatives that directly provide relief to artists and other creative workers.
Continue and refine the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) program, with a specific focus on improving eligibility for mixed income earners holding multiple positions and/or earners with both W-2 and 1099 wages and/or earners who have worked and filed taxes in multiple states. Sustain workforce protections. Any organization accessing supplemental federal arts funding or a low-interest loan should, through implementation of these funds, adhere to certain minimum employment requirements, layoff prohibitions, outsource/offshore prohibitions.
Refine and clarify criteria for access to these SBA funds. To ensure that the 5.1 million workers and hundreds of thousands of creative businesses currently in crisis can specifically access these funds:
SBA should ensure eligibility for arts-related businesses. The SBA should ensure that arts-related businesses include (1) businesses whose primary customer base is, and/or revenue is generated primarily from, artists or arts institutions, and other arts-related businesses, including, but not limited to: physical production construction; sales, storage, care, or rental of theatrical and cultural goods (costumes, sets, lighting, sound, projection, visual art, supplies, film production trailers and equipment, recording studio rentals); press agencies; theatrical general management and general management firms; independent production managers; technical directors; casting agencies; marketing, advertising, social media agencies; creative content production companies; legal services primarily serving arts and cultural purposes, organizations and/or arts workers (ex: artist visa services) etc.; (2) are not publicly traded businesses.
Allow grantees to apply for and receive grants based on costs incurred between March 1, 2020 and December 31, 2020 at a full 100%. A supplemental grant that is 75% may be used for expenses incurred through June 30, 2021.
Grants will be calculated for eligible institutions, individuals or arts-related businesses as an amount equal to 45% of their 2019 revenue OR $10 million, whichever is less. Recipients of PPP Loans from Round 1 or Round 2 may apply for grants, but must subtract the amount of PPP funds received from the amount of the calculated grants.
Permit organizations and individuals to execute their grants with minimal restrictions. Reasonable restrictions should ensure that funds are substantially used for creative workers’ salaries and contract artists’ fees (1099 and mixed-income earners).
Recommend flexibility in the way NEA, NEH, IMLS, and CPB can disburse funds to include re-granting and broaden guidelines for eligibility for organizations and individual creative industry workers, to include practicing artists.
Protect the healthy pension plans and earned pension checks of entertainment workers by allowing multiemployer plans to implement policies that safeguarded pensions after the Great Recession, such as freezing zone status, smoothing investment losses, and doing no harm to healthy pension plans.
Include the Performing Artist Tax Parity Act, H.R. 3121, proposed by Rep Judy Chu (D-CA) and Vern Buchanan (R-FL) in relief legislation This bill would return an important “above-the-line” tax deduction for job-related expenses of performing artists who work for two or more employers and have related expenses that are more than 10% of their performing arts income. This provision has also been championed by Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI) through additional pieces of legislation.
Eliminate restrictions on the use of PPP funds and any funds disbursed through the SBA that prevent employers from hiring new 1099, part-time, and other contract employees in addition to retaining full-time staff.
Establish support systems, educational programs, and accounting services to inform and guide individual or institutional applicants of their eligibility for various relief opportunities, with an emphasis on outreach to historically underrepresented communities, with a focus on women, veteran, LGBTQ, and minority-owned and operated eligible entities and individuals.
RECOVERY
These detailed components were developed collaboratively by 100 creative organizations with members of the coalition of 2,300 cultural organizations and creative workers who endorsed Put Creative Workers to Work. For more detail on the components listed below, please click here.
Recognizing that there can be no economic or community recovery without creativity and creative solutions, through legislative focus directed at the NEA, NEH, IMLS, and the Departments of Education, Transportation, HUD, Labor, Agriculture, Energy, and State, authorize a significant investment to put the country’s 5.1 million creative workers to work developing infrastructure, addressing public health, enhancing education, driving racial justice, increasing safety, documenting, and encouraging dialogue.
Collectively, the proposals below would economically and socially impact every American community; put over 325,000 creative workers into full- or part-time jobs; would commission 300,000 new pieces of art ranging from posters and signage to full-scale new theatrical, musical, and literary pieces; and would ripple out over 80 cents of every dollar (at least!) into struggling local economies, revitalizing businesses, drawing in tourists, and restarting economic engines in every state. The proposals do so by prioritizing and incentivizing the support of artists and other creative workers federally and locally, with a focus on living-wage, commissions, and residencies that will allow creative workers to meaningfully contribute to local economic recovery by curating a vibrant social, economic, and cultural life.
Any organization accessing supplemental federal arts funding or a low-interest loan should, through implementation of these funds, adhere to certain minimum employment requirements, layoff prohibitions, outsource/offshore prohibitions, non-abrogation of collective bargaining agreements, and union neutrality as appropriate.
Incentivizing local/state/tribal and private sector and existing non-arts-based nonprofits hiring/re-hiring/keeping of creative workers, in various forms, including accelerator programs to temporarily underwrite the salaries of creatives (including programs around incentivizing the hiring/re-hiring of creatives inside non-creative organizations and the on-ramping of arts and culture groups to get them a runway as they begin to produce again), incentives to protect arts educators, arts-in-health workers, those working in community development, etc.
Support businesses in engaging creative minds and driving innovation through financial incentives to accelerate hiring and re-opening and capitalize efforts to re-open through low- and no-interest loans.
Incentivize local and state partners to commission free community engagement opportunities, help cultural venues adapt their facilities and digital platforms, and provide safe settings for family learning, performances, and wellness programs.
Support technical assistance and support for creative workers, community partners, and funding entities to ensure that the dollars flowing to local arts-based community development efforts have maximal and long-term impact.
Focus on organizations that are led by members of and/or based in Black, Indigenous, and communities of color and have been disproportionately impacted by COVID-19, the economic crisis, and historical inequities.
Incentivizing to drive workforce training or retraining of creative workers, including digital training, technology, etc. Distributed among the appropriate agencies based on the program.
Underwrite the local- and state-level creation of digital job-training and skill-building support programs for artists and creative workers to build digital capacity within the arts. More broadly, invest in broadband access for all and prioritize digital equity, particularly in rural and Native communities, which will improve creative connectivity and access.
Federal investment, in various forms, including residencies within federal departments, direct commissioning of individual artists, commissioning of cultural organizations, integration of creatives into health, safety, etc.
Echoing the Works Progress Administration, provide funding to federal departments to employ and/or commission creative workers as artists-in-residence, community organizers, and teaching artists, and creative economy businesses to produce free and low-cost cultural experiences, with a specific focus on living-wage creative jobs.
Employ artists and creative workers in residencies inside federal departments, drawing on existing models such as the NPS Arts in Parks program and the AICAD/NOAA Fisheries Art+Science Fellowship, which embed artists in national infrastructure to improve public understanding of the environment, and creating new ones such as integrating an artist to rethink the experience of mass transit, develop arts-integrated curriculum in the education system, help rethink infrastructure, etc.
Direct funds to support programs that engage creative workers to address community health issues; provide funding and guidelines for states, localities, and tribal governments to commission public health campaigns; integrate creative arts therapies into care; and support place-based programs to allow creatives entering the workforce to earn revenue with their creativity and reactivate local economies.
Complete implementation of, and fund, an ArtistCorps within AmeriCorps, beginning from existing authorizing language within the Serve America Act provisions approved in the Obama/Biden Administration, to allow artists and creative workers to use their creative practice to heal communities, drive social-emotional learning, improve cultural competency and cohesion, address trauma, and inspire new thinking in communities.
Incentivizing investment in arts-based education and educators. Through federal funds distributions and guidelines, matching grants, forgivable loans, and other available mechanisms, support arts education, arts-integrated teaching, place-based cultural practice, intergenerational education, oral history, and the preservation of folk traditions.
Create a temporary bridge program through the Department of Education to incentivize local and state decisionmakers to protect arts educators (art, music, theatre, and dance teachers in all public schools) during difficult budgeting processes. For two years, this incentive program could provide up to 50% of an arts educator’s salary, with a third step-down year, and a requirement that the school district then keep the staff member on for two more years with their own funds.
Commission, through the Department of Education, the development of teacher professional development on arts- and creativity-inclusive trauma-informed education practice and incentivize districts to have teachers participate by tying participation rates to stimulus and recovery funding levels. For the years to come, teachers of all types, including arts educators, will become de facto counselors for a traumatized student body as they reintegrate and renormalize following the pandemic.
Through the Department of Education, develop funding that can distribute via higher education to provide internship and fellowship stipends commensurate with the local prevailing minimum wage for students and recent graduates, including creative workforce students and graduates wishing to use their creative skills in the workforce.
Increase cross-agency support for extended-learning opportunities, after school, and weekend, summer education, as well as creative youth development and provide federal leadership of arts education in equipping America’s students for the future.
Invest in the arts as an eligible component of prevention, diversion, reentry, and residential juvenile justice programs through the Office Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP).
Provide funding for and where appropriate authorize a new Office of Arts, Culture, and Creative Economy housed within the Executive Office of the President and used to produce and coordinate recovery-specific activities and to conduct certain federal activities that need to be centralized.
To coordinate the policy relevant to arts, culture, and creative economy, with particular attention to recovery and relief measures, recommend the installation of, and fund a recovery-related body of work for, a senior advisor or team within the Executive Office of the President to advise on related issues and coordinate associated actions across departments.
Models for this position include a cabinet department, a President’s Office, the reinstatement and rethinking of the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities, or an Arts, Culture, and Creative Economy team situated within the Domestic Policy Council.
In addition, with no associated cost, implement various policy changes focused particularly on parity of treatment for creative workers and, more broadly, independent contractors, as predominantly outlined in the PLACE Act and CREATE Act, while also reviewing and considering changes to laws that govern unemployment, health insurance, and access to capital that currently disadvantage or exclude independent
For more information on how to support our Arts & Culture recovery efforts, check out our Get Involved page and sign our Open Letter to the 116th U.S. Congress.