Recently, Joplin’s arts and entertainment non-profit Connect 2 Culture announced the results of an over-year-long study about the arts positively impacting the city’s economy.
KRPS’s Fred Fletcher-Fierro has more.
On behalf of the City of Joplin, Connect2Culture participated in the Americans for the Arts national study, Arts & Economic Prosperity 6 to shed light on the economic and social impact of the nonprofit arts and culture sector.
For over a year, C2C collected over 800 audience-intercept surveys from a variety of arts and cultural events.
The study found that the arts and culture sector in Joplin generated nearly six million dollars in economic activity in 2022 and supported 96 jobs. The study also found that those 96 jobs paid out over 3.1 million dollars in income, which contributed about $925,000 in local, state, and federal income taxes.
Also, perhaps younger and older generations have more in common than we think. Study participants who indicated they lived outside of Joplin city limits between the ages of 18 and 34, and 55 years and older comprised 78.3 percent of cultural attendees in Joplin last year.
That figure lowers a few percentage points to 75.3 percent among Joplin residents.
The study also found that those who attended cultural events last year in Joplin and were residents voted in the 2016 presidential election at an impressive clip of 92.2 percent. While 86.2 percent of attendees who live outside of Joplin voted in 2016.
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