As streaming companies make record profits, independent musicians—who bring joy and culture to our lives—are struggling to make ends meet.

Platforms like Apple Music and Spotify would not be successful without artists. However, while Spotify made over $1.3 billion in profits last year and streaming has grown to represent 84% of U.S. recorded music industry revenue, musicians make tiny fractions of a penny per stream.

Right now, it takes 1,000 streams for an artist to afford a cup of coffee, and musicians have to get more than 800,000 monthly streams to make as much as a $15/hour full-time job!

To fix this disparity, Rashida Tlaib introduced the Living Wage for Musicians Act, which would tax streaming companies and generate a new streaming royalty to compensate artists more fairly.

This will help more artists achieve a living wage from music—enabling them to pay rent, raise a family, buy a home, and invest in their future. If passed, it would reform the music industry by supporting more diverse and independent artists, enabling artists to record more music and tour more extensively, and injecting more money into local economies.

Rashida created this policy in collaboration with the United Musicians and Allied Workers (UMAW) and music artists who have been directly impacted by the lack of oversight in the music industry.

As Detroit artist and WDET radio host Shigeto said: “Artists have been taken advantage of since the inception of digital streaming. The Living Wage for Musicians Act gives voice to independent musicians and could potentially change a lot of artists’ lives by giving them a sustainable revenue stream.”