Northern Spark 2015: Cloud Cult (Photo by Kory Lidstrom)
City’s Creative Index update shows Minneapolis at nearly four times national average for strength of creative economy
Provided by City of Minneapolis
The 2015 Creative Vitality Index data is out, capturing the scale and economic impact of Minneapolis arts, culture and creative industries for the third year. For the first time since the baseline report in 2013, demographic data is a part of the economic measures.
Findings reveal a healthy, nationally competitive creative sector with strong economic activity in the region:
- Creative industry sales pumped more than $4.5 billion into the Minneapolis economy.
- Creative industry sales are nearly eight times the size of Minneapolis sports sector revenues.
- Creative jobs have grown by 10.4 percent, outpacing overall job growth in the Minneapolis economy.
- Minneapolis’ metro index number remains steady with the sixth highest score among peer cities in the U.S.
The findings also reveal disparities. Demographic data was available for the first time, so analysts looked specifically at women and communities of color to ask if everyone is benefiting.
- A lower percentage of people of color work in creative occupations in Minneapolis than in the metro and nationally (9 percent in Minneapolis, 14 percent in the metro and 17 percent nationally).
- A slightly higher percentage of women work in creative occupations in Minneapolis than in the metro and nationally (49 percent in Minneapolis, 48 percent for the metro and 47 percent nationally).
- The average creative worker in Minneapolis has a lower hourly wage than other Minneapolis and metro workers (median wage for creatives in Minneapolis is $20.79 versus $25.13, in the metro $19.30 versus $22.48).
The data
The Minneapolis Creative Index report contains quantitative data from the following data providers:
- Creative Vitality Index administered by Western States Arts Federation. The Creative Vitality Index is a tool that measures annual changes in the economic health of highly creative industries using information about organizational revenue, jobs and other measures from creative businesses and nonprofits. One of its key benefits is that it captures occupational employment, a better way of measuring creative employment that the census misses. Because it uses nationally available annual data sources, the index allows us to compare Minneapolis to other geographic areas such as the metropolitan region, other cities, the state and the nation each year by assigning each area an index number that reflects its comparative creative vitality. The methodology has stayed consistent over time, allowing for an apples-to-apples comparison to other geographic areas.
- Economic Modeling Specialists International is a powerful labor market database composite from 100 different sources from the U.S. Department of Commerce, U.S. Department of Labor and U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics.
For complete findings see the Creative Vitality Index report.
See related: All Government News on MinnyApple.com
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