Don’t you just love statistics? The endearing way they’ll do almost anything for you? Their awesome power to impress–with or without substance? Better than Paris Hilton at grabbing headlines and malleable as a shmoo, they’re the favorite tools of anyone with an agenda. Last month, when the U.S. House of Representatives finally approved a record $35 million increase in funding for the NEA, Americans for the Arts claimed a victory, noting that their recent study, “Arts & Economic Prosperity III,” had been a factor in winning the vote. While congressional opponents decried the NEA for “polishing trash,” supporters cited research showing that nonprofit arts groups generate $12.6 billion in federal government tax revenues and 5.7 million full-time equivalent jobs.
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Chicago–the biggest fish in the study’s pond–made such a good showing that Americans for the Arts came to the Cultural Center last month for the second part of its dog-and-pony show, the unveiling of regional results for the entire country. This is the third time they’ve done this study over the last 13 years but the first time Chicago’s been included (New York and LA were not). According to the latest data, collected with the help of the Illinois Arts Alliance, the 115 nonprofit arts organizations surveyed in Chicago are pumping out $1.09 billion in economic activity annually.
My favorite guide through this kind of thicket is a guy who’s done more than a few of these studies himself: Mark Rosentraub, dean of the college of urban affairs at Cleveland State University. He says the flaw in a lot of economic-impact studies is something called the substitution effect: making the assumption that if people weren’t going to the events being studied, they’d be doing nothing. Either you’re at, say, Chicago Shakespeare Theater or you and your money have been sucked into a black hole where you won’t be dressing, eating, driving, or spending a penny on anything.
Americans for the Arts president Robert L. Lynch, speaking at the Cultural Center, argued that the nonprofit arts are “supporting jobs, generating new revenues,” and providing a “seven-to-one return on government investment” (thanks to that magic formula). “If the nonprofit arts went public, there would be a feeding frenzy on Wall Street,” he said. That was a joke, but this wasn’t: Americans for the Arts economic-impact studies “have been referenced in Congress over 100 times in the last five years.” Maybe the ends justify the claims.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): illustration by Laura Park.
