Use this form to write to Governor Cuomo and your NY Assemblymember and Senator to demand jobs for arts and culture workers now!

Also, join us on February 25 at 12pm Noon outside Cuomo's NYC office to make sure he hears us. Details here: bit.ly/wpa-now

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Almost all of New York’s performing artists have been shut down since mid-March 2020. A broken and piecemeal unemployment system has left culture workers struggling to survive. Americans for the Arts found 62% of arts and cultural workers are entirely unemployed, including more than 69% of Black and Indigenous artists and artists of color. According to a survey conducted between November and December 2020, the Music Workers Alliance (MWA) found, “71% of musicians and DJs surveyed have lost three quarters or more of their income.” Many have dipped into savings, moved to cut expenses, and considered changing careers. Similar stories extend across the performing arts sector.

In 2019, Arts and Culture contributed $119.9 Billion to the New York State economy. It is one of the main drivers of the tourism industry and by extension the surrounding local economies. There is no full recovery of the New York economy without Arts and Culture. But while we know venues and producers are hurting badly, employer-side programs such as Save Our Stages and PPP won’t keep culture workers and the industry our labor creates afloat.

If we are lucky, the culture industry will take years to return to what it was before the pandemic in New York. But without funding guaranteed for New York’s arts and culture workers, the show cannot go on. Without taking care of its culture workers, New York’s culture industry will never come back, because we won’t exist anymore.

New York needs to create a program for its performing artists modeled after the depression-era Works Progress Administration (WPA) and Federal Theater Project (FTP). Under these programs, the government directly created jobs (i.e. non-grant-based direct funding) for the creation of public works of art and culture.

We support Assemblymember Fahy and Senator May’s bill for a modern-day WPA in New York. We support the Invest in Our New York Act to fund these jobs. We demand performances in public spaces, commissions for online work, online performances taped in private venues and theaters, subsidized safe socially distanced performances in struggling clubs, venues, and theaters that can’t afford to pay fair minimums, performances in public schools and new teaching jobs, and a prevailing wage for everything. We need jobs now!

That is why we say: Invest in Our New York so arts and culture workers can go back to work! Musicians, DJs, composers, sound artists, dancers, choreographers, actors, playwrights, directors, theater-makers, and all performing artists and other workers who support their creative endeavors stand ready to create public works.

”. Both of these programs, despite their best efforts, fail to meet the overwhelming needs of struggling performers today. Governor Cuomo needs to prioritize getting money to New York’s unemployed arts and culture workers so they can feed their families, keep a roof over their heads, and create the works of art that enrich and heal our communities.