But the French appropriation-to-population ratio suggested to me that our sad and declining real-dollar allotments might register even more strongly if expressed in per capita terms, so I ran the numbers, using the real-dollar figures I’d gathered for the last post. The results (see the last post for the rationales for years selected): in 1981, the calculation of the NEA’s total budget against the U. S. population yielded a per-person figure (rounded) of $2.35. Today (2020, reflecting pre-Covid appropriations): 49¢. To be sure, if you are lucky enough to live in my fair state of New York, in 1970 you could have assigned yourself $7.20 for the arts from state coffers. Today: $2.42. Feel free to add the federal and state together for grand totals, but only if you live in New York. There you have it, ladies and gents—the amounts that we, through our elected representatives, allow our individual selves for support of the arts. I have not calculated opera’s share. I’ll be surprised if it’s so much as a dime.

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NEXT TIME: Until we return to live performance, I can never be quite sure till we approach the target date. Which is: Fri., Apr. 9.

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