The fine art of economy-boosting

Yet another economic study, this one by Washington, D.C.-based Americans for the Arts, has arrived to boost the oft-voiced argument that government and philanthropy should support the creative sector with plenty of cash because such investments pay off not just in the creation of plays, paintings and pas de deux, but by generating millions of jobs and billions of bucks that fuel the economy at large.

Dubbed the “Creative Industries Study,” the investigation casts a much wider statistical net than previous studies focused only on the nonprofit arts sector. It’s an attempt to assess how many businesses and employees nationwide either produce artistic work, teach others how to do it or depend on a workforce or customer base either skilled in or attuned to the arts.

The study, which relied on information compiled by Dun & Bradstreet, counts 548,000 such businesses in the United States, translating into 3 million jobs, or 2.2% of all national employment.

The Los Angeles region -- encompassing L.A., Orange and Riverside counties -- has 49,000 creative businesses employing 342,000 people, according to the study, second to the New York metropolitan area’s 55,000 businesses and 399,000 employees. But on a per-capita basis, the order flip-flopped, with the L.A. region first and New York second. Overall, the study shows the West and South leading in per-capita creative employment, with L.A., Atlanta, San Francisco, Denver, Dallas and Seattle in the top 10.

The study is “very conservative” yet “shows the arts to be a very formidable industry,” says Randy Cohen, vice president of research and information for Americans for the Arts.

The study includes museums, zoos, the film and TV industries and book publishing. Many quotidian vendors of creative wares and know-how are in the count -- among them interior and clothing designers, all branches of architecture, dance studios, wedding and portrait photographers, art supply stores and movie theaters.