California leads as economic capital of creativity

Pictured: Creative California Communities grantee Brava! for Women in the Arts.

Findings from the 2018 Otis Report on the Creative Economy of California were revealed earlier this week, and the trend of the Golden State as the creative capital of the nation holds strong for another year.

For more than a decade, the Otis College of Art and Design has generated the Otis Report on the Creative Economy of the Los Angeles Region, in partnership with the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation. That research has since been expanded — with support from the California Arts Council — to include a statewide analysis, now in its fifth year. The 2018 edition combines both the regional and statewide data into a single report.

The report is a tremendous resource for substantiating the significant value of arts and culture from an economic perspective — a contribution of our state’s creative community that often goes overlooked and underestimated.

Key findings include:

• The creative economy output totaled $407.1 billion (direct, indirect, and induced).
• The creative economy generated 1.6 million jobs (direct, indirect, and induced), and those wage and salary workers earned $141.5 billion in total labor income.
• With 789,900 direct jobs in the creative economy — an increase of more than 42,000 from last year’s report — California surpasses New York State, which has 477,300 jobs, followed by Texas at 230,500.
• With 789,900 direct jobs in the creative economy, California surpasses its pre-recession peak of 767,000 in 2007.
• Property taxes, state and local personal income taxes, and sales taxes directly and indirectly generated by the creative industries totaled $16.4 billion across all of California.
• Attendance in arts courses continues to rise through the K-12 students, underlining the importance of arts education to facilitate creativity and move students towards high-earning creative industries.

The report also includes an addendum with commentaries from California’s creative and cultural sphere: Mark Slavkin, Director of Education at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts; Angie Kim, President and CEO of the Center for Cultural Innovation; Tacy Trowbridge, Global Lead, Education Programs at Adobe; and Steve McAdam, Chair of Product Design at Otis College of Art and Design.

The 2018 Otis Report on the Creative Economy of California is available for download at www.otis.edu/otisreport.