What Are Artists Really Paid?
- Julie Hain
- Mar 9
- 5 min read
Across South Jersey, artists are everywhere.
They teach ceramics in classrooms across Burlington County. They lead mural projects in Camden neighborhoods. They run storytelling workshops in Salem libraries and music programs in Atlantic City schools. And that’s not all!
These artists are often called teaching artists or freelance creatives, and they are a vital part of how our communities experience arts and culture.
But behind every workshop, performance, and residency is an important question that the arts sector has not always answered clearly.
What are artists actually being paid?
That question is at the center of ArtsPayNJ, a statewide initiative working to bring transparency to compensation across New Jersey’s nonprofit arts and cultural sector. On March 10, the newest findings from the 2025 ArtsPayNJ Salary Survey will be shared with the public during a statewide webinar.
Register here: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_33rhLmN7QAC7huZ_yAryHA?mc_cid=7c6c30a1a8&mc_eid=991ee90f1e#/registration
The results will provide one of the clearest pictures yet of how artists and arts workers are compensated across the state and what it will take to build a stronger, more sustainable creative workforce.
A statewide effort to understand the arts workforce
ArtsPayNJ is a collaborative project addressing pay equity, staff retention, and long-term sustainability in New Jersey’s arts and cultural community.
The initiative gathers real data from arts organizations and arts workers across the state to better understand salaries, benefits, job satisfaction, and workforce demographics. The project has been supported by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, which funded the first and second rounds of statewide surveys, reports, and tools.
One of the most useful tools created through this effort is the ArtsPayNJ public dashboard, an interactive online platform that allows users to explore compensation data across the sector.
Visitors can examine information about salaries, benefits, workforce demographics, and job satisfaction among arts workers in New Jersey. When organizations and artists have access to reliable data, they can make more informed decisions about hiring, budgeting, and career development.
ArtsPayNJ is coordinated by a partnership of statewide arts service organizations, including ArtPride NJ, Arts Ed NJ, Dance NJ, New Jersey Theatre Alliance, the New Jersey Association of Museums, and the South Jersey Cultural Alliance.
This collaboration reflects a shared belief that transparency strengthens the entire cultural ecosystem.
What the newest survey reveals
The 2025 ArtsPayNJ Salary Survey, conducted with research partner Baker Richards, offers an updated snapshot of compensation across New Jersey’s nonprofit arts sector.
One encouraging finding is that median salaries have increased slightly since 2023; slightly outpacing inflation.
Progress like this matters. But the data also shows that many challenges remain.
Long hours beyond contracted work remain common across the arts sector. Access to benefits is still uneven. The salary gap between senior arts leadership roles and comparable positions in other industries continues to widen.
For freelancers and teaching artists, the situation can be even more complicated. The survey identifies three persistent barriers faced by many freelance arts workers: inconsistent work, low pay, and limited access to benefits.
Another revealing insight is that many freelancers rarely negotiate their rates. That finding highlights the need for clearer compensation benchmarks and more consistent contracting practices across the field.
Understanding these patterns helps the arts community move toward more sustainable working conditions.
A national conversation about artist pay
The conversation about artist compensation is not just happening in New Jersey.
Surrounding states can shine a light on what’s happening here at home. A recent report examining teaching artist compensation in New York City highlights many of the same challenges facing South Jersey freelance and contract-based arts workers. Teaching artists in that study reported inconsistent work, limited benefits, and modest income levels compared to other professional sectors.
The findings echo what ArtsPayNJ Salary survey (now in its second iteration) is documenting here in New Jersey.
Why the ArtsPayNJ dashboard matters
One of the most powerful outcomes of the ArtsPayNJ initiative is the public interactive dashboard, which allows users to explore compensation data across the state.
The updated dashboard now includes several new features designed to make the data easier to use.
A new Executive Summary provides a clear written overview of the survey’s major findings for readers who prefer a narrative explanation rather than charts and graphs.
Users can also compare results from the 2023 and 2025 surveys, adjusted for inflation, to track changes in salaries and benefits over time.
Additional filters allow users to explore compensation data by art form, organizational budget size, job title, and geographic region. These tools make it easier for artists and organizations to benchmark salaries and understand how compensation varies across the field.
For artists negotiating contracts or organizations building program budgets, this information can be invaluable.
Why this matters for South Jersey
South Jersey’s arts ecosystem is built on partnerships.
Artists collaborate with schools in Camden, libraries in Atlantic County, historic sites in Salem, community centers in Cumberland, and cultural organizations throughout the region. These partnerships bring arts programming to residents and visitors and help define the cultural identity of South Jersey.
But sustaining that ecosystem requires more than passion. It requires understanding the real economics behind creative work.
Reliable compensation data helps organizations plan responsibly. It helps artists advocate for fair treatment. It helps funders understand the true cost of cultural programming.
That is why the South Jersey Cultural Alliance is proud to participate in ArtsPayNJ and support this statewide effort to strengthen the arts workforce.
Join the conversation on March 10
The ArtsPayNJ 2025 Results Webinar will present highlights from the new research and demonstrate how to use the updated dashboard.
Participants will hear from leaders across New Jersey’s arts service organizations, representatives from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, and the research team at Baker Richards.
The session will walk through key findings, highlight major changes since the 2023 survey, and show how artists, nonprofit leaders, and funders can use the dashboard to compare compensation across disciplines, job titles, budget sizes, and geographic areas.
A second webinar focused specifically on freelancers and teaching artists will also be announced during the event.
If you care about the future of the arts workforce in New Jersey and especially here in South Jersey, this conversation is worth being part of.
The arts sector runs on creativity. But it also runs on data, transparency, and collaboration. ArtsPayNJ is helping make that possible.
References
New York City Arts in Education Roundtable. Paying for Professionalism 2025: A Report on New York City Teaching Artist Compensation and Employment. July 2025.
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