A million lawyers in U.S.? But that's not the news

Debra Cassens Weiss reported yesterday on the ABA Journal website, Law News Now, that there are a million lawyers in the U.S. -- but -- who'd have believed it? -- there are twice as many artists.

Law News Now links to article in the Washington Post about a new study released by the National Endowment for the Arts which reports that nearly two million people identify themselves as "artists." The NEA says that "artists are one of the largest classes of workers in the nation, only slightly smaller than the U.S. military’s active-duty and reserve personnel (2.2 million). Artists now represent 1.4 percent of the U.S. labor force."

The NEA study, entitled Artists in the Workforce, is available as a .pdf document. According to the study, as of 2000, more than one-fifth of the nation's 2,000,000 artists live in the Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Washington, or Boston metropolitan areas. That works out to 64,800 artists in the Chicago Metropolitan Area as of 2000, broken down as follows:

Artists -- 1,080
Announcers -- 1,335
Architects -- 8,320
Fine Artists, art directors & animators -- 7,230
Dancers and choreographers -- 610
Designers -- 26,440
Entertainers & performers -- 895
Musicians and singers -- 4,845
Photographers -- 4,150
Producers and directors -- 4,065
Writers and authors -- 5,830