By our Campaign Coordinator Benjamin Wade and the Athena Social Media Team
About Ben
Benjamin Waida is a writer, researcher, and student whose work with Athena Project promotes arts advocacy, community outreach, and pay equity efforts. With a strong interest in writing, digital media, and nonprofit communications, he is passionate about amplifying the voices of women and underrepresented artists.
What We Heard (and What We’re Doing Next)
Design by Dakota Harlow @theastrogoat
When we talk about pay equity, it’s easy to picture one number: the dollars paid for the same work with the same qualifications. Although that does matter, the AAUW Equal Pay Day Calendar pays tribute to the “unadjusted gap”-comparing women workers across occupations to the average, full-time working white male. This shows how far into the year different groups of women must work to earn what men earned the year before. We must also note that inequity isn’t only the “same job, with different pay,” but also who gets hired full time, who gets promoted, and who must do part-time work instead to accommodate unpaid care work.
In 2026, US women, trans and nonbinary artists face an unadjusted pay gap of 53-85%. Again and again, these artists described the same tension: trying to make art inside a life that still requires caregiving responsibilities plus rent, groceries, and medical bills to be paid is virtually impossible. We want to make this “gendered” struggle visible.
That’s why Athena asked artists to take our 2026 Pay Equity Survey. We are deeply grateful to all who already submitted* and to those who still choose to do so HERE.
What came back is bigger than a mere gap in dollars, it’s a pile-on. Paid gigs can be unpredictable, unpaid labor is often expected, health care access is precarious. These factors, together with discriminatory gatekeeping, all stack up until making art starts to feel like a luxury you have to earn the right to do.
What the Numbers Tell Us
A few things stood out from survey results:
- Over half of respondents (55%) spend 11+ hours per week creating, rehearsing, producing, or otherwise doing their art.
- Among respondents who shared an income range, 55% make less than $10,000 per year from their art.
- Top barriers to higher-paying or decision-making roles include unpaid or underpaid arts work (58%) and needing to split time between art and reliably paid work (55%).
- About 42% spend 6+ hours per week on unpaid labor outside the home
- At home, 41% carry almost all unpaid labor, and another 15% do more than half.
About two in five respondents identify as LGBTQIA+, and over half identify as living with a nonvisible disability.
Taken together, the numbers point to something simple: earning power isn’t just about talent. It’s about time, access, support, and about how our system accommodates certain demographics (the “average white cis-gendered man”) better than others.
Graphic from Athena’s 2026 #ArtsPayEquitySurvey
What Artists Shared in their Own Words
The written responses help to put a voice to what the numbers are only able to hint at.
Health care is not separate from creative life. It’s a boundary line. One respondent wrote:
“If I am scared about my own health and survival, I do not have the energy to create.”
Unpaid expectations showed up everywhere, including in roles framed as “leadership.” As one artist put it:
“Decision making roles in the arts are often low-pay for high time commitment … I don’t see how I could take a leadership role for an arts organization and still have time to actually make art.”
Gatekeeping, especially in theatre, also surfaced repeatedly. One person wrote:
“They promote from within, and people they know. There is not a lot of opportunity for ‘outsiders’ to come in even with great résumés and training.”
For parents and caregivers, the logistical barriers of frequently booking childcare to attend auditions or art-related work can be forbidding. Beside the frequent demand for childcare support, we hear and amplify the call for “more grants exclusive to mothers/parental figures.”
The responses moved from naming what hurts to naming what helps: Artists not only shared what would make a real difference in terms of grand gestures, but also in terms of practical day-to-day support.
What Would Make Creating Art More Feasible
When we asked what would make creating art more feasible, this is what came back:
- Health care that doesn’t punish people for earning income (including protections for people on Medicaid).
- A living stipend or basic income for artists (as just recently made permanent in Ireland), plus larger, more accessible grant opportunities.
- Better stipends, clearer rates, and transparency around pay.
- Mentorship and networks that don’t depend exclusively on knowing the right people (including mentorship outside formal degree programs).
- Childcare support, including childcare options at arts venues and stronger public support for caregivers.
- Disability access that isn’t an afterthought.
- Paid leadership that reflects underrepresented communities.
Pay equity is tied to public choices – arts funding and the support that lets people take creative risks. That makes it more important than ever to vote for leaders who will free the NEA and other public resources from the current administration’s ban on promoting “gender ideology”. Locally, we can also move faster by organizing together: asking venues, employers, and funders for transparent rates, accessible spaces, and real budgets that match the labor required. Colorado’s subsidies for early childhood education and those afflicted by the discontinuation of Obamacare are helpful, yet even more decisive action in this direction is needed for artists who face parental responsibilities and/or rising health insurance premiums.
What Athena is Doing Next
Discover more about Athena’s Curating for Impact Program.
First, we’re sharing what we learned, so artists aren’t left carrying this conversation alone.
Second, we’re focusing on what we can control: within our Curating Art for Impact program, we communicate rates up front with artists, we advocate with event partners for budgets that actually pay artists, and we work to improve access for artists with disabilities.
Athena consistently strives to become more inclusive of artists with minority identity markers, and our queer, BIPOC and other artists keep expanding our belief in what art can achieve when it comes to connecting and creating empathy.
We also try our best to manage volunteers with a lens of understanding that this unpaid labor is on top of other responsibilities such as caregiving.
Through our monthly Comics Sound Off gathering, we’re also building a supportive community for women, trans, and nonbinary comics, especially when mentorship would be too costly or out of reach.
If you’re reading this and thinking, yes, these messages need to be heard, here are a few ways to move it from just being relatable to actionable:
Design by Dakota Harlow @theastrogoat
- If you hire artists: Put rates in writing up front, pay on time, and budget for the full scope of labor (planning, admin, rehearsal time, travel, accessibility needs). Transparency is a pay equity practice.
- If you’re an artist: Keep talking about rates with each other, even informally. When pay stays private, underpayment stays easier to excuse.
- If you’re part of the community: Support events and organizations that pay artists fairly, and ask the basic questions (Who’s being paid? How? When?). Show up for artists the way you’d want someone to show up for you.
- Amplify our #ArtsPayEquity and #EqualPayDay campaigns: Follow us on our socials, like and share our posts and calls for submissions, and subscribe to our newsletter to stay informed.
Finally, we want this conversation to stay public. If you’re an artist, stay connected with us, and keep telling us what you need. Share this survey far and wide so we can keep listening and amplifying.
Our goal is straightforward: more paid opportunities for women and underrepresented genders and identities, and a local arts ecosystem where making meaningful work doesn’t require burning yourself out just to prove you deserve it.