Though artificial intelligence is making it easier than ever to produce images, music, and text, the technology is also making it harder for the people who have traditionally produced this work to earn a living.
A photographer who once was commissioned to make art for an advertising campaign is now competing with graphics produced by the AI image generator Midjourney. A novelist who used to make money on the side as a technical writer is seeing that work be replaced by a series of prompts in ChatGPT.
The extent to which AI will upend creative work remains unsettled. But that uncertainty has made guaranteeing income for creatives a more viable policy idea.
In fact, creatives in New York recently participated in the largest basic income program for artists in U.S. history, the Guaranteed Income for Artists initiative.
Spearheaded by Creatives Rebuild New York and primarily funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the program gave 2,400 artists across New York state $1,000 a month beginning in June 2022. There were no work requirements and no restrictions on how the money could be spent. The program sought to improve the financial stability of artists and encourage the public to see them as workers who deserve a stable income and social support.
As researchers who study artists, cultural work, and public policy, we evaluated this program to see whether it achieved its stated goals. Our main finding was simple: Artists did not stop working. Instead, they changed the kind of work they did.
Cash buys time
Artists often make choices that look strange in standard economic models, which typically assume workers will prioritize higher wages while balancing work against leisure time.
Artists, on the other hand, may stay in poorly paid, unstable arts work, even when other work pays more. Economists have long described this as a “work-preference” model. Put plainly, they argue that artists get value from the work itself, not just from the paycheck.
The guaranteed-income program, which was geared toward low-income artists, offered a rare chance to see how a financial cushion would influence the kind of work they focused on, along with their overall earnings.
The program selected artists through a weighted lottery. It adopted an expansive definition of “artist.” Anyone engaged in artistic, cultural or community-centered creative practices — such as musicians, storytellers, or muralists — was eligible to apply. However, it excluded commercial workers like wedding photographers or food caterers.
Our analysis, which is forthcoming in the Journal of Cultural Economics, compared artists who received payments with applicants who hadn’t been selected.
For purposes of the study, artists broke down their work time into “artistic/cultural practice(s),” “other arts work,” and “non-arts work.” The work didn’t necessarily have to involve a paycheck or stipend; it could simply mean time spent on a personal artistic pursuit. However, it’s safe to assume that “non-arts work” usually involved some sort of side job to earn extra money.
The results lined up almost exactly with what the work-preference model predicts. Artists who received the payments spent about 3.9 more hours per week on arts work than comparable artists who did not receive the payments. They also spent about 2.4 fewer hours per week on non-arts work.
Opponents to basic income programs often argue that recipients will become less motivated to do any work whatsoever. That isn’t what happened, though. The money helped artists move time out of work they were doing mainly to survive, and into the creative work they preferred.
Earnings told a messier story
The earnings results were more complicated.
Artists receiving the monthly payments earned significantly less from non-arts work. That makes sense, given that many of them switched away from non-arts work. But total earnings from all work also fell by about $11,600 a year on average, close to the $12,000 annual value of the cash payments.
But we cannot confidently say that the basic income program reduced total earnings by that amount. That’s because artists’ incomes are so volatile: A few commissions, contracts, sales, or cancellations can dramatically change what artists earn in a given year.
Income varied widely among both the artists who received monthly payments and the applicants who hadn’t been selected, which made it hard to see the precise cause and effect of the program on total earnings.
The program may have given artists enough financial room to stop chasing some non-arts income, but it did not change their overall income from where it had been.
That is a very different policy effect than “more cash equals more income.” It is closer to “more cash equals more control over time.”
A lesson beyond the arts
The findings do not mean that guaranteed income is the right policy for everyone. Artists are unique. Many have strong reasons to keep doing creative work even when it pays poorly.
The study also took place after the COVID-19 pandemic, while the arts and entertainment sector was still recovering. And Creatives Rebuild New York’s guaranteed-income program was a temporary, one-time opportunity.
A longer-term follow-up could show whether these shifts lasted. Did artists keep making more art after the payments ended? Did the extra time they spent on their own artistic pursuits lead to new work, new income or more stable careers? Those questions remain open.
But to us, the most important lesson may be that work is not one thing.
A monthly cash transfer can reduce one kind of work while increasing another. It can lower earnings from gigs people take mainly to pay the bills, while freeing up time to spend on work that is meaningful, socially valuable, or personally sustaining.
For artists in this program, $1,000 a month did not buy a vacation or a chance to slack off. It bought time for work they valued more.
That distinction matters, particularly as debates over the use of basic income policies grow alongside advances in AI and automation. The question is not only whether people work when they receive cash with no strings attached. It is what kind of work becomes possible when financial pressures ease.
This article was written by Joanna Woronkowicz from Indiana University and Doug Noonan from Indiana University Indianapolis, and was originally published on The Conversation.
Header Image by Raden Prasetya on Unsplash
