In June of 2024, CUF published a report on the stark racial and ethnic disparities in the city’s creative economy, with a focus on the growing advertising industry. This report helped spark a City Council oversight hearing in January of 2025 on pathways into the arts and culture workforce.

At the hearing, CUF’s Data Researcher Rachel Neches shared data on the underrepresentation of New Yorkers of color in growing fields across the creative economy. The Council also invited CUF to present our policy recommendation to replicate the successful CUNY 2X Tech Initiative and establish a talent pipeline program for creative economy careers. CUF’s team also presented this idea at CUF’s first annual NYC Economic Opportunity Summit in July 2024.

Our report, Expanding Access to Advertising Careers in NYC, revealed that the creative industries have a long way to go before they look like New York City. Black New Yorkers hold just 8 percent of the jobs in publishing, 8 percent in architecture, and 9 percent in film and tv. In the advertising sector, Black workers hold 7.7 percent of jobs yet comprise 20.7 percent of the city’s total workforce. 

This hearing builds on CUF’s extensive work on addressing disparities in New York’s creative sector, including Creative Comeback: Surveying NYC’s Cultural Ecosystem in the Wake of Covid-19 and The Changing Face of Creativity in New York: Sustaining NYC’s Immigrant Arts Ecosystem.