I ran across a really interesting break down of occupational claims created in a data visualization platform called Flare. In it you can search for a specific occupation and the percentage that occupation takes up in the work force. If you search for “musician” you find that the number of people claiming this (or music teacher) as their job begins to take a huge tick up in 1970. I wonder what the cause of this labor shift is. In general, budgets for the NEA seem to have been held constant with inflation or even declined since the 1980s, so it is surprising to see an explosion of people claiming it as their career if we understand the paltry arts support our country gives as limiting educational opportunities or grant support.
On the other hand, we can perhaps understand this explosion in people claiming to be musicians as growth in the commercial industry of music, the tape cassette was invented in 1961, but only really caught on by the end of the decade.
