Figure

IV-08a: Total Amount Appropriated by States for Their Arts Agencies, Fiscal Years 1974–2015 (Adjusted for Inflation)*

* Includes both base legislative appropriations and line items. Totals include appropriations for the 50 states, as well as the District of Columbia.

Source: National Assembly of State Arts Agencies, Annual Appropriations and Revenue Survey Data. Appropriations amounts were adjusted for inflation using the annual gross domestic product deflators (seasonally adjusted) produced by the U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Economic Analysis. Deflators were downloaded from the website of the Federal Reserve of St. Louis at http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/GDPDEF/downloaddata?cid=21.

When Congress established the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) in 1965, it required the agency to direct a portion of its funding to any state that established its own agency to promote the arts. Today every state has such an agency, and, although the NEA continues to fund them, the bulk of these agencies’ revenues comes from state legislatures (in contrast to state humanities councils, which are funded largely by federal dollars).

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