Talk all you want about “cultural capital,” but it turns out art has a real, tangible impact on the national economy. On Thursday, the National Endowment for the Arts and the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis released their prototype estimates of what they call the Arts and Cultural Production Satellite Account.

In 2011, arts and cultural production (ACP) accounted for 3.2 percent — a grand total of $504 billion — of the country’s GDP. That’s more than tourism, which clocked in at 2.8 percent of the GDP.

What the ACP and NEA neglected to include here are all the tax subsidies doled out, especially to the film industry, in the name of job creation and luring businesses. Sure, there were 310,000 jobs in the industry in 2011. But as a 2012 New York Times investigation found, about $1.5 billion in tax breaks is handed out to filmmakers each year. Forty-five states have film tax incentives. New York shelled out $359 million last year, topping the list. California — and please explain why Hollywood, the heartbeat of the industry, needs to incentivize filmmaking — was second, with $191 million in tax credits.

Let’s not forget, Michael Moore received $847,145.27 from the state of Michigan when he filmed Capitalism: A Love Story. The budget, according to Box Office Mojo, was $20 million. It took in roughly $17.4 million at the box office. Capitalism at work, I suppose.

That said, these new metrics have value because they aren’t confined to what is characterized as high art. They essentially represent the creative economy. (No, not the Creative Class, Richard Florida evangelists.) That means everything from film to publishing to radio and TV. Which is a broad scope of jobs, including executives and the administrative staff on the Paramount lot. It includes gigs outside the knowledge economy, not just Harvard grads and screenwriters.

As you can see in the chart below, advertising — those soul-crushing suits! — tops the list in gross output, but arts education is right behind.

Much like the rest of the economy, the arts suffered during the recession. ACP hit a peak of 3.7 percent of the country’s GDP in 2007, dropped to 3.2 in 2009 and has hovered around that number since.

Two million workers were employed in creative industries in 2011. Almost 310,000 worked in the movie industry, the largest share, for a total of $25 billion in compensation. And, as the data shows, employment was hit hard by the recession. More than 170,000 jobs were lost in 2009.

So yes, the creative economy pitches in to the country’s annual GDP. But ask yourself this: Could they — we’re looking at you, Burbank — do it without the help of taxpayers?

Bill Bradley is a writer and reporter living in Brooklyn. His work has appeared in Deadspin, GQ, and Vanity Fair, among others.

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