We Need a Plan
Just over five years ago, the arrival of COVID-19 and subsequent shutdowns put New Orleans—a city reliant on tourism and renowned for its public and participatory culture—into crisis, with the creative and cultural community hit particularly hard. Within weeks, an already frayed economic safety net unraveled completely, creating widespread uncertainty and raising serious questions about the future viability of the city and its culture. Thankfully, an unprecedented combination of federal programs and funding; local, city-led initiatives; public and private philanthropic support; non-profit and other organizational assistance; and community-led mutual aid were able to create enough of a support system to allow the cultural community to weather the years-long pandemic. Now, though some impacts linger, the city and its cultural practices and businesses are largely operating as they were pre-pandemic. Yet, just as we have regained our footing, we are entering a new period of challenge and uncertainty—and this time the federal government won’t be coming to assist us, since it is the cause.
As this column is being prepared, the Senate is debating a massive budget reconciliation bill, referred to as the “Big Beautiful Bill,” and it has already been narrowly approved in the House of Representatives. While there could still be changes in the final legislation, if passed as currently written, there will be major cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, and SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), raising costs for health care and reducing access to healthy food options for those most in need of support. These cuts will hit New Orleans particularly hard, where the aggregate poverty rate is 23% of the population. Due to longstanding discriminatory practices, that rises to 30% within the Black population and 43% for Black children. Proposed Medicaid work requirements—mandating 80 hours of documented work, school, or volunteering a month in order to qualify for benefits—could also create a series of problems for musicians and other gig workers who may not be able to show the required proof of activity. Meanwhile, skyrocketing home insurance costs have been met with profound inaction from both federal and state lawmakers. And Trump is threatening to shut down FEMA after the 2025 hurricane season. The squeeze is coming from all sides. Even the “No Tax on Tips Act,” at first glance seemingly positive for many New Orleans workers, could ultimately serve as a disincentive to raise the tipped minimum wage or musician guarantees, pushing worker compensation an even greater extent to untaxed—but also uncertain—tipped income which could impact earnings overall, particularly during the slow summer months.
In a majority Black city centered around art, culture, and tourism, the Trump administration’s racist assault on arts and humanities, “DEI,” and immigration are also poised to hit New Orleans particularly hard. Already we’ve seen deep cuts and clawbacks of National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), and Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) grants, particularly those supporting historically Black institutions or art forms. The Amistad Research Center, one of the nation’s oldest archives of African American history, lost 40% of their funding, forcing them to cancel projects and lay off half of their staff. The Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities, which supports projects in New Orleans and throughout the state, recently lost $600,000 in funding, which will certainly have ripple effects to many smaller projects. Regionally, the Whitney Plantation had several grants cancelled and its application for federal landmark status halted. While these larger lost opportunities may get media coverage, the reality is we will never publicly see the full scope of these cuts. The majority of cancelled projects, particularly those with a smaller community-centric focus, will just quietly disappear and cultural organizations will increasingly be forced to do more with less. In New Orleans, Trump’s reinstated travel ban is poised to have a particularly insidious impact, as it includes both Haiti and Cuba, countries that have deep, centuries-old influence on the city’s culture and from which we have recently seen an influx of world-class musicians helping to invigorate the local scene. And while hard data has so far proved elusive, it has been widely speculated that Trump’s immigration crackdown and combative foreign policy will likely lead to a long-term international tourism slump which, again, would hit the New Orleans creative economy particularly hard.
The cumulative effect of these policy decisions—particularly if the cuts proposed in the budget reconciliation bill are adopted—will be felt throughout the city, but musicians, creatives, artists, culture bearers, and gig and service industry workers will be disproportionately impacted. Much like during the early days of COVID, it’s going to be crucial to develop a unified support strategy. Unfortunately, under current conditions, the process may be even more daunting. The vacuum created by the loss of billions of dollars of federal funding has, at least in the short term, left many organizations that could help lead the effort destabilized themselves, and the federal government, which even under the first Trump administration provided a modicum of support, is now the driver of the problem. State leadership, led by far-right governor Jeff Landry, has also shown its hostility to social support programs, most recently expanding strict work search requirements for unemployment recipients. However, unlike the onset of the pandemic which hit New Orleans hard and fast, what we are now facing is likely to be a slower building catastrophe, giving us time to build a cross-sector action plan. Like last time, it will take a combination of non-profit and private organizations, local government, philanthropy, and mutual aid to get us through. And with fewer resources, coordination of services will be even more vital. Strong local leadership is also going to be important, and with a mayoral election just a few months away, we have a real opportunity to make support for the cultural community a continued priority for whomever assumes the role early next year. But we know the strongest support system is going to come from the community itself, and we can’t wait until January to get started. We’ve got work to do now.
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