There is no consensus on the number of working artists in the United States.

A crucial segment of the U.S. artist population that is largely uncounted in federal population and labor surveys are those individuals who engage in artistic practice but who do not structure their artmaking in a way that is captured in the predominant time-allocation methods of identifying artists as workers.

Thus, limited data exist on the number of working artists in the United States and how their lives and livelihoods are structured. This limits funders’ and policymakers’ abilities to make crucial decisions about how best to support artists in the U.S.

The National Survey of Artists is designed to identify and learn about this undercounted population.

With support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, NORC is engaging artists, sector experts, and researchers to inform the development and fielding of a nationally representative survey to reach an expansive, nationally representative sample of artists which includes this ‘invisible’ population.

The study design involves drawing sample from NORC’s nationally representative AmeriSpeak panel as well as from multiple nonprobability panels, the data from which will be calibrated to the nationally representative survey data using NORC's innovative True North methodology.

The National Survey of Artists will provide a detailed picture of how many of these artists currently exist within the U.S. population, who these artists are, and how they support themselves.

Accurately counting and characterizing the lives and livelihoods of working artists will unlock an understanding of the infrastructure of support required for this population across the United States.

This study will explore the following questions:

• How many artists live and work in the United States today? 
• Who are these artists? 
• How do they describe their creative practice? 
• How do they support themselves economically? 

Survey fielding will be completed in fall 2024 and results will be publicly available in summer 2025.