Author: Ennis, Philip H. and Bonin, John

Publication Year: 1976

Media Type: Report

Summary:

Condensation of a report by the authors, Wesleyan University. While testifying before Congress in 1975, the Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts was asked for a report on the unemployment of artists. In response to this request, the Research Division produced Report No. 1, Employment and Unemployment of Artists: 1970-1975. This report was based in part upon earlier work by the Bureau of the Census and the Bureau of Labor Statistics which had collected data on the employment and unemployment of artists as part of their studies of the U.S. population.

Abstract:

Condensation of a report by the authors, Wesleyan University. While testifying before Congress in 1975, the Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts was asked for a report on the unemployment of artists. In response to this request, the Research Division produced Report No. 1, Employment and Unemployment of Artists: 1970-1975. This report was based in part upon earlier work by the Bureau of the Census and the Bureau of Labor Statistics which had collected data on the employment and unemployment of artists as part of their studies of the U.S. population.

Little of the information in Research Division Report No. 1 had been published before, and the data on employment and unemployment of artists stimulated considerable discussion. Part of the discussion questioned the adequacy of the data, since a special characteristic of the artist labor force, particularly in the performing arts occupations, is that employment periods are often short.

In these artistic occupations, artists frequently take jobs in other occupations during the intervals of artistic unemployment and may also hold second jobs to supplement their income. To help improve understanding of this area, Actors' Equity Association offered to the National Endowment for the Arts the opportunity to examine its personnel data files. Mr. Donald Grody, Executive Secretary of Actors' Equity, pointed out that this data source was far more detailed for the professional actor than the data series of the Bureau of the Census and Bureau of Labor Statistics. (p. i) Our report on this research is divided into three parts. The first part describes the data Actors' Equity collects in the course of its routine work and, the second part evaluates the data by asking certain analytical questions concerning the state of the theatre and the economic conditions of its personnel. In the third part, we recommend several research steps to be taken next. (p. 1)

CONTENTS
Preface.
Introduction.
Description of Actors' Equity Association internal data sets.
Analysis of Actors' Equity's data sets.
Recommendation for research.
Appendix: Types of equity contracts.

Arts & Intersections:

Categories: Artists-Resources for