The case for publicly funded art

In These Times -  Beyond jobs and entertainment, decades of research links arts education in public schools to better outcomes in literacy, critical thinking and social-emotional development. When we defund the arts, we don’t just lose performances and exhibitions— we lose one of the primary means by which we understand each other. The arts are how a culture makes sense of itself.

….Arts and cultural industries contributed $1.2 trillion to the U.S. economy in 2023, about 4.2% of GDP, and employed nearly 5.4 million workers. Meanwhile, the National Endowment for the Arts has been shrinking for decades. Adjusted for inflation, the NEA’s budget has dropped from roughly $592 million in 1980 to $207 million today. In 2025, the Trump administration proposed eliminating it entirely and canceled hundreds of active grants overnight via email. The private sector won’t fill the gap on its own, which is why federal support is so important: Every dollar the NEA puts out is matched 9-to-1 by nongovernment funds. Everybody wins.