Artists in a year of recession

The National Endowment for the Arts has published a study about the effect of current economic conditions on artists. While the general percentage of unemployed writers and other artists is fairly similar to the over all trend, the study notes that historically artist employment lags other professions in recovering from economic downturns.

In the last quarter of 2008, artist unemployment hit a rate of 6.0%. That doesn't sound so bad, but it was an increase of 63% from one year earlier.