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Making a living as an artist can be difficult. The pandemic made it harder. Venues closed, and live gigs dried up. And for some artists, a guaranteed-income program has been a lifesaver. Across the country, there have been debates about giving money to people, no strings attached. But in Minnesota, one program is popular, and it's expanding. Alex V. Cipolle of Minnesota Public Radio reports.
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ALEX V CIPOLLE, BYLINE: A party is just getting started at St. Paul's Springboard for the Arts Center. People are mingling and taking a look at the artwork on display. It's a celebration for the nonprofit's guaranteed income for artists program. And it helps people like DJ McKinley West, who thought he'd have to give up his career when the pandemic hit.
MCKINLEY WEST: And the thought process that my music, No. 1, was going to become less of a need to people and, No. 2, was going to become less of a way for me to actually provide for my household was something very, very scary.
CIPOLLE: West says he found a safety net with Springboard for the Arts. It pays artists $500 a month for 18 months, and they use the monthly payments as they see fit, for equipment and art supplies or groceries and rent.
WEST: Having this guaranteed income means that I get to continue my career, even if I don't have any performances, any sort of shows lined up.
CIPOLLE: According to the Urban Institute, more than 100 guaranteed-income pilots have launched in the U.S. since 2018. Only a few have focused specifically on artists. San Francisco and New York State launched artist programs during the pandemic, but both have since ended. Minnesota's remains, and it's expanding. Springboard for the Arts executive director Laura Zabel says it will now fund 100 artists for five-year terms.
LAURA ZABEL: Supporting people as humans with a little safety net, the thing that we all deserve, and giving people the opportunity to breathe and to decide how to use that safety net themselves really works.
CIPOLLE: The Minnesota program provides financial support to artists in both urban and rural areas. Kandace Creel Falcon is a painter who lives on a farm and says the payments have been crucial for a freelancer like them.
KANDACE CREEL FALCON: I think artists are deeply devalued. Our culture in the United States tends to really like to consume the products that artists make but doesn't like to pay us for our time and labor, and there is so much invisible labor that goes into being an artist.
CIPOLLE: Research scientist Kalen Flynn works at the University of Pennsylvania and has been studying the Minnesota program since it started. She says Springboard's financial support gives artists more creative freedom.
KALEN FLYNN: Watching them evolve with the guaranteed income has meant watching them start to take risks with their art that they might not have been able to take without it.
CIPOLLE: Despite any benefit, though, there has been both controversy and resistance when it comes to guaranteed-income programs. For instance, lawmakers in Iowa and South Dakota banned using public money for them. Executive director Zabel says it hasn't been a problem for Springboard since its program is privately funded.
ZABEL: We know, of course, that there is pushback happening across the country, and some folks have - I think, have tried to turn it into a political issue. I think we're not that interested in the politics of it. We're interested in the effectiveness.
CIPOLLE: She says their research shows it's paying off and that artists they've funded have stayed true to their careers while enriching their communities.
For NPR News, I'm Alex V. Cipolle in St. Paul.
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