Franklin County’s human arts and human services organizations are substantial contributors to Franklin County’s economy. In this economic impact analysis, we estimate the county GDP, employment, and wage impacts among organizations in Franklin County’s arts and human service sectors. We also analyze the impact of volunteering on Franklin County’s economy and report survey data that gives an insight into current financial trends impacting Franklin County’s arts and human service sectors.
Economic activity from arts, culture, and humanities organizations in Franklin County contributes $200 million to county GDP. It does this by supporting 2,300 jobs and generating $88 million in total wages across the county. This economic activity leads to an estimated $2.5 million in local income and sales tax revenue generated by arts, culture, and humanities organizations in Franklin County.
Economic activity from human services organizations in Franklin County contributes $2 billion to county GDP. It does this by supporting over 30,000 jobs and generating nearly $1 billion in total wages across the county. This economic activity leads to an estimated $27 million in local income and sales tax revenue generated by human services organizations in Franklin County.
Volunteering also had a substantial impact on Franklin County’s economy. We estimate that a quarter million Franklin County residents volunteered in 2021 for a total of 19 million hours of volunteer time. This equated to a total of over half a billion dollars in the value of volunteer time that year.
Despite this economic impact, there is still work to be done. We estimate high levels of child poverty cost the Franklin County economy $5.2 billion in 2021 in the form of reduced future earnings, crime, health care spending, and child welfare impacts. Reducing child poverty to the level of overall poverty in the county could reduce these costs by $1.5 billion. This will lead to more social costs of poverty and more demand for human service provision.
In our survey of Franklin County arts and human service organizations, we find some promising trends. Revenues among these organizations were up from 2019 to 2021. We find some of this could be explained by increased funding coming from outside the county, likely due to funding originating with CARES Act and American Rescue Plan Act funds. This is further corroborated by survey results showing that federal, state, and local grants made up a larger part of organization funding in 2021 than in 2019 while earned income was down over that two-year period. This funding will no longer be available as COVID relief programs come to an end by the middle of the decade.