New Jersey: ArtsPay NJ

Report cover photograph by Atlantic City photographer Ruban Garcia. The image depicts the work of artist Heather Deegan Hires with model Katie Weightman

In 2022, New Jersey’s arts service organizations came together through the New Jersey State Council on the Arts Communities of Practice initiative. Through these convenings, the group strategized ways to address important issues affecting the arts field—issues like pay equity, salary transparency, workforce retention and sector sustainability.

An outgrowth of this collaborative work was ArtsPay NJ: a compensation survey and pay equity project. With support from the arts council, the Grunin Foundation, The Newark Museum of Art and an anonymous donor, the group retained a professional research firm and designed a comprehensive arts compensation study, conducted in 2023. The survey asked a series of questions about job status, professional roles, tenure, hours worked, pay, benefits, household income and perceptions of employment. The researchers sought to secure information from a broad cross-section of creative workers in New Jersey: individuals at multiple career stages, those working multiple jobs, full-time workers, part-timers, contractors, consultants, freelance artists, interns, apprentices and fellows.

Responses ultimately were received from 810 individuals and 130 nonprofit organizations, accounting for approximately 8,400 staff statewide. Key findings included:

In a field dominated by women (making up 67% of respondents in the respondent pool), there was a $3,000—4.7%—pay gap between men and women.
White men had the highest median salary, $4,000 above White women, and about $8,000 above people of color. People of color (who comprised 37% of the study) were paid 7.7% less than White respondents.
The majority of workers in the arts, regardless of salary, had to rely on additional income outside of their own arts related work to meet their living expenses.
30% of entry level employees worked above their expected hours. This increased to nearly 80% for executive level employees.
Significant pay gaps exist at the executive level. The median executive salary at organizations with budgets of $5 million and up was $249,000. The median at organizations with less than a $1 million budget was $60,000.
Less than half of employees accessed health insurance through their employer. Less than half were offered retirement benefit plans through their employer. And only a quarter accessed life insurance through their employer.

In contrast to many other salary surveys (which are often proprietary and kept behind paywalls), the ArtsPay NJ results are fully transparent to the public and accessible for free. A webinar, a highlights summary and an interactive data dashboard facilitate access to the information.

The project partners—ArtPride New Jersey, Arts Ed NJ, Dance New Jersey, New Jersey Theatre Alliance, New Jersey Association of Museums and South Jersey Cultural Alliance—hope the study can be used as a tool for advancing pay equity in the New Jersey arts sector. In addition to educating employers and workers alike about compensation issues, the data can help organizations establish fair pay structures and can help individual arts workers to negotiate competitive compensation. The 2023 information will serve as a baseline against which future progress in pay equity can be measured as the New Jersey arts sector works toward a more inclusive and sustainable future. For more information, contact Lindsay Dandeo and Diane Felcyn at the New Jersey State Council on the Arts.