Statement by the National Endowment for the Arts Chair Maria Rosario Jackson on the President’s Fiscal Year 2024 Budget

The Biden-Harris Administration today released the President’s Budget for Fiscal Year 2024. The Budget details a blueprint to grow the economy from the bottom up and middle out, lower costs for families, protect and strengthen Medicare and Social Security, and reduce the deficit by ensuring the wealthy and big corporations pay their fair share—all while ensuring no one making less than $400,000 per year pays more in taxes.

“President Biden’s Budget recognizes that arts and culture have a unique power to better our economy, improve the health and well-being of our communities, and bring greater understanding and unity,” said National Endowment for the Arts Chair Maria Rosario Jackson, PhD. “Supporting opportunities to make, teach, and engage with the arts is necessary for us all, as individuals and as a nation, to reach our full potential.” 

The FY 2024 Budget makes critical, targeted investments in the American people that will promote greater prosperity and economic growth for decades to come and includes $211 million for NEA. At the NEA, the Budget will: 

• Enable the NEA to support the still-struggling, post-COVID arts and cultural sector; 
• Expand support for historically underserved communities and first-time applicants; 
• Provide additional opportunities for people to experience the arts, create, and express themselves;
• Strengthen civic infrastructure through the arts; and 
• Fortify the NEA’s administrative operations in order to best serve the public.

The NEA awards project-based grants through a competitive process to thousands of nonprofit organizations each year.  The agency also has a broad range of partnerships and special initiatives, research, and other efforts that contribute to the vitality and health of our neighborhoods and communities, engage our students and schools, and preserve and advance our American culture. The NEA is the only funder, public or private, that provides access to the arts in all 50 states and every congressional district, the District of Columbia, and U.S. territories annually. 

The Budget includes funding for NEA’s grant programs such as Grants for Arts Projects, Challenge America, and Our Town, and national initiatives such as Creative Forces®: NEA Military Healing Arts Network, Poetry Out Loud®, NEA Big Read, Citizens’ Institute on Rural Design, Shakespeare in American Communities, and Mayors’ Institute on City Design. 

Building on the President’s strong record of fiscal responsibility, the Budget more than fully pays for all of its investments—reducing deficits by nearly $3 trillion over the next decade by asking the wealthy and big corporations to pay their fair share. For more information on the President’s FY 2024 Budget, please visit: https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/.