Personal Finance

What it takes for creatives to sustain a career

Published

9 months ago

September 7, 2024

Business Finance News

Carol Yepes | Moment | Getty Images

In Stacey D’Erasmo’s new book, “The Long Run,” she interviews artists who are late in their careers.

There’s dancer and performer Valda Setterfield, who performed through her 80s despite serious injuries from a car accident in her 40s. There’s writer Samuel Delany, now 82, who has published more than 40 books although he’s dyslexic.

D’Erasmo also provides anecdotes from artists of the past, including that Monet painted his impressionist water lilies the way he did because his vision was deteriorating from cataracts.

Author Stacey D’Erasmo

Photo: Sarah Shatz

What interested D’Erasmo was not what got these artists going, but what kept them going over decades of life. Romanticized ideas of the starving artist, she says, ignore the reality that art is made “by real people with real needs in real places.” Those include financial realities, which often require balancing one’s art with another job.

“What gets us started — those first few years, or perhaps those early moments of artistic ignition — is brief, fiery, and beautiful, of course,” D’Erasmo said. “It’s a story the culture loves to tell as in, say, ‘A Star is Born.'”

On the other hand, she said, “The story of duration, of a sensibility unfolding over time and the life that evolves to keep art at the center is a story that gets told less often. To me, that is such a heroic story.”

CNBC interviewed D’Erasmo, the author of five novels and two nonfiction books, by email this month. (The conversation has been edited and condensed for style and clarity.)

‘When you starve the artist, you starve artmaking’

Annie Nova: Why is it a heroic story when someone sticks to their art over a lifetime?

Stacey D’Erasmo: In this world, it is so hard to do that. As a writer who knows lots of other writers and artists, I’ve experienced firsthand the urgency of this question: How do we keep doing this, on all levels? Which is to say: How do I support a complex and often difficult practice that means everything to me, even though it may not immediately, or ever, produce money, glory or approval? That’s not a three-act drama, roll credits. It’s a life.

AN: The idea of the “starving artist” is a familiar trope in our culture. What does it get wrong? How does financial stability help to create art?

SD: Well, if all the artists were starving, they’d be dead, and we wouldn’t have any art! That trope romanticizes deprivation, and it’s a fantasy of art as some sort of magic that can live on nothing, but art doesn’t get made in some ethereal realm. It’s made by real people with real needs in real places.

Financial stability is a godsend to the artist, primarily because the less you have to think about money, the more you can think about what truly matters to you. In this country, though, even basic financial stability can be very hard to come by, as we know. Among other things, that is never good for the arts. When you starve the artist, you starve artmaking.

We long endlessly for more time.

AN: What do you see with people balancing a job to pay the bills with their art? Does it matter if the job is related to their art?

SD: I would say that 99% of the artists and writers I know balance a bill-paying job with their own work. Whether it’s related to one’s art or not is a matter of temperament: Some people love to do something totally unrelated, and others want to be immersed in cultural work.

The problem people constantly face is that the day job’s demands are often urgent — things need to happen today, this week, right now, before 5. That’s true whether your job is woodworking or running a gallery. Art-making has its own idiosyncratic clock. The difference between these two clocks is hard to navigate, which is why I and nearly everyone I know pines not so much for money per se as for time. We long endlessly for more time.

‘There really is no free lunch’ for artists

AN: The artists profiled in your book work in all different mediums. Do some take more money to sustain than others?

SD: Film, as we all know, just inhales money. Even the lowest-budget film costs way more than what it costs a writer to sit down at their desk and write. Visual art requires all sorts of materials. Dance requires not only costumes and lighting and so on, not to mention dancers who need to eat, but rehearsal space, and space often does not come cheap. Artists, writers and arts organizations all spend a fair amount of time seeking grants and other sources of funding just to keep the lights on. Writing is probably the cheapest medium in terms of art creation, but distributing it in the world — publishing, also requires a fair amount of money that someone has to pay. Sadly, there really is no free lunch.

AN: How does economic inequality determine who gets to make art?

SD: That’s a book-length question, but the short answer is: A lot.

I would also say that economic inequality is most brutal not only in who gets to make art, but also in who gets to have a career and a life in art. I live in New York City, and I see acts of creation everywhere every day: a person walking down the street who has put together a fantastic look, a person making glorious graffiti, or something like ball culture, which you can now see in the glossy television show “Pose.” All of those people are making art, but the structural inequality of opportunity means that few of them would ever be able to build a life around it. We’re missing out greatly on what those people might be able to do not for a moment or a season, but for decades.

‘As the artist changes over time, so does the art’

Valda Setterfield attends the Hold My Hand Forever Exhibition By Forevermark at Highline Studios in New York City, Nov. 17, 2014.

Dustin Harris | Getty Images

AN: There are some artistic professions that come with an early retirement age. I’m thinking of dancers. How do people reinvent themselves after an early end to a career?

SD: Some dancers become choreographers. Some actors move into directing — think of someone like Ron Howard. But that makes it sound seamless or easy, and often it isn’t. Valda Setterfield, a dancer whom I profile in the book, had a horrific car accident at 40 and she thought her life on stage might be over. Her husband, choreographer David Gordon, helped her learn to move again, and she also began to do more theater and film work, which continued for the rest of her life.

Vera Wang was an aspiring Olympic figure skater, but she didn’t make the Olympic team in 1968. Then she turned to fashion. Later, she began designing costumes for Olympic-level figure skaters such as Nancy Kerrigan and Michelle Kwan. When I look at Wang’s designs, it seems to me that they have a precision and grace not unlike a figure skater’s balletic moves.

Often, people reinvent themselves by opening up a slightly different channel through which their gifts can flow

AN: What advantages do middle and later career artists hold over younger ones?

SD: So much more comfort with the weirdness, unpredictability and challenges of the process. You’re just not as freaked out all the time. I don’t mind my own stumbling. I also don’t feel as brittle or defensive. When I was younger, for instance, I would look at all the incredible writers who had come before me, and who were around me, and feel terribly intimidated by the depth and breadth of the field.

But now, it all looks to me like this extraordinary abundance. If you’re fortunate enough to have a long run, there can be so much freedom in mid- and late career.

AN: How do you see people’s art change as they get older?

SD: Again: a book-length question, and several books have been written about it, such as Edward Said’s “Late Style.” What I noticed about the people I interviewed is that their work changed, and changed again, over time. They weren’t waxwork replicas of their younger selves.

The musician Steve Earle, for instance, who came up as a rollicking solo artist in country music in Nashville in the ’70s and ’80s, has moved increasingly toward musical theater in the latter half of his life — a collaborative, multimedia form. The renowned writer Samuel Delany has traversed myriad genres over the course of his life. Intuitively, it makes sense. As the artist changes over time, so does the art, because we make it out of ourselves.

‘Creativity isn’t a machine’

AN: In the end, what were the biggest things you found that helped people sustain a creative life?

SD: As we get older, the willingness to be open, to be vulnerable, to be a beginner, to be out of one’s comfort zone can get a little stiff. You aren’t always so confident that you won’t break something, literally or figuratively. Shame lurks around. But the people who have sustained what looks to me like a truly alive creative practice are the ones who are willing to take the risk of flopping. I hope that I am able to risk embarrassment for the rest of my life.

AN: What can people do if they hit a period of disillusionment with their art or creativity?

SD: Remember that it happens to everyone — this I know for a fact. Creativity isn’t a machine, it’s an organism. Organisms get tired, bored, distracted, daunted, ornery. Stop. Take a walk — and by this I mean: Go somewhere else, do something different, maybe for an hour, maybe for a year. Or several. Keep walking. Look around. What do you see?

Personal Finance

How Senate, House GOP ‘big beautiful’ bill plans differ

Published

8 hours ago

June 17, 2025

Business Finance News

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD), left, listens to Sen. Mike Crapo (R-ID), center, chair of the Senate Finance Committee, speak to reporters outside of the West Wing of the White House on June 4, 2025.

Anna Moneymaker | Getty Images News | Getty Images

Republicans proposed offering a tax break to tipped workers, as part of a package of tax cuts the Senate Finance Committee unveiled Monday. GOP lawmakers are trying to pass their multitrillion-dollar megabill in coming weeks.

The Senate measure — which aims to fulfill a “no tax on tips” campaign pledge by President Donald Trump — is broadly similar to a provision that House GOP lawmakers passed in May as part of a domestic policy bill.

In both versions, the tax break is structured as a deduction available on qualified tips. The Senate legislation defines such tips as ones that are paid in cash, charged or received as part of a tip-sharing arrangement.

Taxpayers — both employees and independent contractors — would be able to claim it from 2025 through 2028. Filers could take advantage whether they itemize deductions on their tax returns or claim the standard deduction.

Key differences in ‘no tax on tips’ proposals

However, the Senate proposal is different from the House version in two key ways, Matt Gardner, senior fellow at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, wrote in an e-mail.

First, the Senate legislation would cap the tax deduction at $25,000 per year, while it is uncapped in the House bill, Gardner wrote.

Sen. Shelley Moore Capito: Not expecting any 'radical' changes to GOP reconciliation bill

Also, the income limits work differently in the Senate legislation, he wrote.

The House bill makes the tax deduction completely unavailable once an individual’s income hits $160,000 per year.

By comparison, the Senate bill would gradually reduce the value of the tax deduction once an individual’s income exceeds $150,000, or $300,000 for married couples. The Senate would dilute the tax break’s value by $100 for every $1,000 of income over those thresholds.

Senate Republicans, like those in the House, would limit the tax break to tipped workers in occupations that “customarily and regularly” had received tips on or before December 31, 2024.

The bill text directs the U.S. Treasury Secretary to publish a list of those occupations within 90 days of the legislation’s enactment.

Few workers would benefit from ‘no tax on tips’

A “no tax on tips” proposal seems to have bipartisan appeal in the Senate, which unanimously passed a similar standalone measure last month. Former Vice President Kamala Harris also supported a tax break on tips during her 2024 presidential campaign.

However, the tax break wouldn’t benefit many workers, tax experts said.

There were roughly 4 million workers in tipped occupations in 2023, about 2.5% percent of all employment, according to an analysis last year by Ernie Tedeschi, director of economics at the Budget Lab at Yale and former chief economist at the White House Council of Economic Advisers during the Biden administration.

Additionally, a “meaningful share” of tipped workers already pay zero federal income tax, Tedeschi wrote. In other words, a proposal to exempt tips from federal tax wouldn’t help these individuals, who already don’t owe federal taxes.

“More than a third — 37 percent — of tipped workers had incomes low enough that they faced no federal income tax in 2022, even before accounting for tax credits,” Tedeschi wrote. “For non-tipped occupations, the equivalent share was only 16 percent.”

Tax deductions reduce the amount of income subject to tax (or, taxable income) and are generally more valuable for high-income taxpayers relative to tax credits.

The Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank, said it believed a better way to help workers would be to raise the federal minimum wage.

A “no tax on tips” provision “gives the illusion of helping lower-income workers — while the rest of the legislation hands huge giveaways to the rich at the expense of the working class,” EPI economic analysts wrote Thursday.

Personal Finance

Senate ‘big beautiful’ tax bill has $1,000 baby bonus

Published

9 hours ago

June 17, 2025

Business Finance News

Sen. Ron Johnson on reconciliation bill: We don't have time to get this right by July 4

How Trump accounts work

Not unlike a 529 college savings plan, Trump accounts come with a tax incentive. Earnings grow tax-deferred, and qualified withdrawals are taxed as long-term capital gains.

Under both the House and Senate versions of the bill, withdrawals could begin at age 18, at which point account holders can tap up to half of the funds for education expenses or credentials, the down payment on a first home or as capital to start a small business.

At 25, account holders can use the full balance for expenses that fall under those same guidelines and at 30, they can use the money for any reason. Distributions taken for qualified purposes are taxed at the long-term capital-gains rate, while distributions for any other purpose are taxed as ordinary income.

$1,000 baby bonus: Who is eligible

Young family with a baby boy going over finances at home.

Pekic | E+ | Getty Images

For children born between January 1, 2024, and December 31, 2028, the federal government will deposit $1,000 into the Trump account, funded by the Department of the Treasury, as part of a “newborn pilot program,” according to the Senate Finance Committee’s proposed text released on Monday.

To be eligible to receive the initial seed money, a child must be a U.S. citizen at birth and both parents must have Social Security numbers.

If a parent or guardian does not open an account, the Secretary of Treasury will establish an account on the child’s behalf. Parents may also opt out.

Trump account pros and cons

The White House and Republican lawmakers have said these accounts will introduce more Americans to wealth-building opportunities and the benefits of compound growth. But some experts say the Trump accounts are also overly complicated, making it harder to reach lower-income families.

Universal savings accounts, with fewer strings attached, would be a simpler alternative proposal at a lower price tag, according to Adam Michel, director of tax policy studies at the Cato Institute, a public policy think tank.

“I’m disappointed the Senate did not take the opportunity to improve these accounts,” Michel said. Still, “provisions that remain in both the House and Senate text, we should expect them to become law, and this provision fits that criteria.”

Mark Higgins, senior vice president at Index Fund Advisors and author of “Investing in U.S. Financial History: Understanding the Past to Forecast the Future,” said the key is “if the benefits comfortably exceed the cost.”

According to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, Trump accounts would add $17 billion to the deficit over the next decade.

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Personal Finance

‘Big beautiful bill’ may cut student loan hardship payment pause

Published

9 hours ago

June 17, 2025

Business Finance News

Vitranc | E+ | Getty Images

One provision in Republicans’ “big beautiful” bill would narrow the relief options for struggling student loan borrowers. House and Senate Republicans both call for the elimination of both the economic hardship and unemployment deferment.

Those deferments allow federal student loan borrowers to pause their monthly bills during periods of joblessness or other financial setbacks, often without interest accruing on their debt.

Less attention has been paid to the GOP plan to do away with the deferments than its proposals to eliminate several student loan repayment plans and to establish a minimum monthly payment for borrowers.

The House advanced its version of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act in May. The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions released its budget bill recommendations related to student loans on June 10. Senate lawmakers are preparing to debate the massive tax and spending package.

Nixing the deferments could have major consequences, said Abby Shafroth, director of the National Consumer Law Center’s Student Loan Borrower Assistance Project.

“I’m concerned this is going to lead more people to default on their student loans when they encounter a job loss, surprise medical expense or other economic hardship,” Shafroth said.

The Trump administration said this spring that the number of student loan borrowers in default could soon rise from more than 5 million to roughly 10 million in the coming months.

How unemployment, hardship deferments work

Under the Senate Republicans’ proposal, student loans received on or after July 1, 2026 would no longer qualify for the unemployment deferment or economic hardship deferment. The House plan does away with both deferments a year earlier, on July 1, 2025.

The unemployment deferment is typically available to student loan borrowers who are seeking but unable to find full-time employment or are eligible for jobless benefits, among other requirements, according to the National Consumer Law Center. Under the deferment, borrowers can pause their payments for up to six months at a time, and for a total of three years over the life of the loan.

The absence of the relief “means that for someone who lost their job and is struggling to keep their head above water, the government will demand monthly payments on student loans,” Shafroth said.

The bill comes as the share of entry-level employees who report feeling positive about their employers’ business prospects dropped to around 43% in May, a record low, according to a recent report by Glassdoor.

The economic hardship deferment, meanwhile, is generally available to student loan borrowers who receive public assistance, earn below a certain income threshold or work in the Peace Corps. The total time a borrower can spend in an economic hardship deferment is also three years.

The end of the deferments “eliminates one of the key benefits on subsidized loans,” said higher education expert Mark Kantrowitz.

Persis Yu, deputy executive director of the Student Borrower Protection Center, agreed.

“The ability of borrowers to pause payments and interest on subsidized loans during financial shocks and hardship is a critical benefit of the federal loan program,” Yu said.

The ability of borrowers to pause payments and interest on subsidized loans during financial shocks and hardship is a critical benefit of the federal loan program.

Persis Yu

deputy executive director of the Student Borrower Protection Center

Around 150,000 federal student loan holders were enrolled in the unemployment deferment in the second quarter of 2025, while around 70,000 borrowers had qualified for an economic hardship deferment, according to data by the U.S. Department of Education.

The absence of the deferments will push more federal student loan borrowers into a forbearance, experts say, during which interest continues to climb on their debt and borrowers often resume repayment with a larger bill.

Republicans say doing away with the payment pauses will encourage borrowers to enroll in repayment plan they can afford.