Personal Finance

What it takes for creatives to sustain a career

Published

7 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

Your last chance to claim an IRS stimulus check is approaching

Published

11 minutes ago

April 4, 2025

Business Finance News

Douglas Sacha | Moment | Getty Images

If you still haven’t filed your 2021 tax return and never received a pandemic-era IRS stimulus check, the deadline is April 15 because there’s a three-year window to claim refunds, according to the agency.

Filers who never got the 2021 stimulus payment of up to $1,400 could claim the recovery rebate credit on that year’s return.

“If you didn’t get the stimulus, you’re running out of time,” said Syracuse University law professor Robert Nassau, director of the school’s low-income tax clinic.

The IRS in December announced plans to automatically send “special payments” of up to $1,400 to 1 million taxpayers who didn’t claim the 2021 recovery rebate credit on tax returns for that year.

The agency said most payments were expected to arrive via direct deposit or paper check by late January 2025, based on the taxpayer’s 2023 tax return information.

In order to see if the IRS issued a stimulus payment, you can create an online account and view “tax records” under the “records and status” toolbar.

“That’s the best place to look,” said Tommy Lucas, a certified financial planner and enrolled agent at Moisand Fitzgerald Tamayo in Orlando, Florida.

Your IRS online account also shows if you filed a 2021 return, Lucas said.

If you don’t submit your 2021 filing by April 15, you could also miss other tax breaks, such as the earned income tax credit, which can trigger a refund even without taxes owed, according to the IRS.

Currently, there are more than $1 billion in unclaimed refunds for tax year 2021, the IRS estimated in early March. That represents more than 1.1 million taxpayers and a median unpaid refund of $781. These figures don’t include applicable credits, including the recovery rebate credit.

Tax season is a prime time for scams: Here’s how to protect yourself

You need ‘proof’ of filing by the deadline

While there are several free options for tax returns this season, some may not offer electronic filing for 2021 returns, Nassau warned.

If you’re forced to mail your 2021 return, you should send the filing via certified mail for “proof” you sent it by the April 15 deadline, he said.

“I’ve had situations where the IRS gets something after the filing [due] date, and they just reflexively say it’s too late,” Nassau said. “Spend the $5 and send it certified.”

Personal Finance

Disability advocates sue Social Security and DOGE to stop service cuts

Published

19 hours ago

April 3, 2025

Business Finance News

A Social Security Administration (SSA) office in Washington, DC, March 26, 2025.

Saul Loeb | Afp | Getty Images

A group of disability advocates filed a federal lawsuit against the Social Security Administration and the so-called Department of Government Efficiency on Wednesday aimed at stopping cuts to the agency’s services.

Recent changes at the Social Security Administration under DOGE — including staff reductions, the elimination of certain offices and new requirements to seek in-person services — have made it more difficult for individuals with disabilities and older adults to access benefits, the lawsuit argues.

The complaint was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

The plaintiffs include the National Federation of the Blind, the American Association of People with Disabilities, Deaf Equality, the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, the Massachusetts Senior Action Council and individual beneficiaries.

“The defendants’ actions are an unprecedented and unconstitutional assault on Social Security benefits, concealed beneath the hollow pretense of bureaucratic ‘reform,'” the complaint states.

In nine weeks, the new administration has “upended” the agency with “sweeping and destabilizing policy changes,” the plaintiffs claim, that have shifted agency functions to local offices while slashing telephone services.

“The result is a systematic dismantling of SSA’s core functions, leaving millions of beneficiaries without the essential benefits they are legally entitled to,” the lawsuit complaint states.

The “mass restructuring” of the agency is unlawful and violates the Rehabilitation Act and the Administrative Procedure Act, the lawsuit argues. The changes also violate multiple constitutional provisions, including the First Amendment right to petition the government for redress of grievances, according to the plaintiffs.

With 1.1 million disability claims pending, the recent actions could also be life threatening to individuals who are dying or going bankrupt while waiting for decisions, they allege.

The Social Security Administration did not respond to CNBC’s request for comment.

“President Trump has made it clear he is committed to making the federal government more efficient,” White House spokesperson Liz Huston said in an email statement. “He has the authority to manage agency restructuring and workforce reductions, and the administration’s actions are fully compliant with the law.”

Lawsuit alleges reform is ‘administrative vandalism’

People hold signs during a protest against cuts made by U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration to the Social Security Administration, in White Plains, New York, U.S., March 22, 2025.

Nathan Layne | Reuters

The Social Security Administration sends monthly checks to around 73 million Social Security and Supplemental Security Income beneficiaries.

DOGE, which is not an official government entity, has been tasked with cutting “waste, fraud and abuse” within the federal government. President Donald Trump issued an executive order creating DOGE on Jan. 20, the same day he was inaugurated.

Since then, the Social Security Administration has cut 7,000 employee positions and closed the Office of Civil Rights and Equal Opportunity and the Office of Transformation. The Office of Civil Rights and Equal Opportunity handled the agency’s equal employment opportunity and civil rights programs. The Office of Transformation was responsible for coordinating customer service-related initiatives like adding the ability to use digital signatures and electronic documents.

The Social Security Administration has also changed its identity proofing policies for claiming benefits and changing direct deposit information that is expected to require more individuals to visit the agency’s offices in person.

The agency has updated its policy, allowing individuals applying for Social Security Disability Insurance, Medicare, or Supplemental Security Income who cannot use a personal my Social Security account to complete their claim entirely over the telephone, starting April 14.

The reforms amount to the dismantling of “core functions of SSA, abandoning millions of Americans to poverty and indignity,” according to the plaintiffs’ complaint.

“What the defendants frame as ‘reform’ is, in truth, administrative vandalism,” the lawsuit states.

Beneficiaries face long waits, overpayment issues

The plaintiffs include seven individuals whose experiences, including long customer service waits and, in some cases, demands to repay large sums to the Social Security Administration, are detailed in the complaint.

One plaintiff, Treva Olivero, who has been legally blind since birth, was informed in March 2024 that she had been overpaid Social Security disability insurance benefits for five or six years, prompting the agency to demand she repay more than $100,000, according to the complaint.

Olivero’s Medicaid coverage was also terminated soon after, which left her without income and health coverage. She has since been in an “ongoing struggle” to have her disability benefits reinstated, while also facing almost $80,000 in medical debt, according to the complaint.

Fiserv CEO on the nomination to Social Security Commisioner role

Another plaintiff, Merry Schoch, who received Social Security disability insurance for many years, returned to work to help pay for large medical bills after she was hit by a waste management truck in 2022. She reported her income to the Social Security Administration, and the agency made no changes to her benefit payments, according to the complaint.

Two years later, Schoch stopped working and reported her unemployment to the Social Security Administration. In August 2024, the agency then terminated her benefits and informed Schoch that she owed $30,000 for the disability benefit payments she received while working full time, according to the complaint.

Last September, Schoch was informed she could reapply for benefits. However, she has since struggled to get in touch with the agency over the phone, online and in person.

Both Olivero and Schoch are members of the National Federation of the Blind, which is also a plaintiff.

The plaintiffs want the court to reverse the Social Security Administration’s recent reforms, including staff reductions, closures of certain offices and policies requiring in-person appointments.

Personal Finance

Amid trade turmoil, ‘you do not want to time the market’

Published

22 hours ago

April 3, 2025

Business Finance News

Pres. Trump unveils sweeping tariffs: Here's what to know

As President Donald Trump rolls out sweeping new tariffs on goods imported into the United States, Americans are growing increasingly pessimistic about their financial fate.

Consumers worry that the duties will cause inflation to flare up again, while investors fear that higher prices will mean lower profits and more pain for the battered stock market.

As of Thursday morning, futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average were down 1,200 points, or 2.8%. S&P 500 futures sank 3.4%, and Nasdaq-100 futures lost 4%.

But sharp drops — or sudden spikes — in the market are to be expected, according to Jean Chatzky, CEO of HerMoney.com and host of the podcast HerMoney with Jean Chatzky.

“With these volatile markets, you do not want to time the market,” she said of the old adage. “Timing the market doesn’t work — it’s time in the market.”

Trade tensions, inflation and concerns about a possible recession have undermined consumer confidence across the board, several studies show.

Still, it’s normal for most Americans to feel unnerved during heightened volatility, Chatzky said.

“There’s very little doubt that consumers are feeling nervous, maybe more nervous than we’ve felt in quite some time,” she said.

Committing to setting money aside in a high-yield savings account, whether by scaling back on dining out or rideshare expenses, will help regain some financial control, Chatzky said.

Top-yielding online savings accounts currently pay 4.4%, on average, well beyond the savings account rates at some of the largest retail banks, which average just 0.41%.

“Taking action is the best way to feel more resilient,” she said.

It’s understandable why some may be hesitant to continue investing, however, when you are investing for the long term, a down market is an opportunity for dollar-cost averaging, which helps smooth out price fluctuations in the market, Chatzky said.

This is also a good time to check your investments to make sure you are still allocated properly and rebalance as needed, so you are not taking on more risk that you are comfortable with, she added.

Timing the market is a losing bet

Talk yourself down from making any sudden financial moves, Chatzky advised.

Trying to time the market is almost always a bad idea, other financial experts also say. That’s because it’s impossible to know when good and bad days will happen.

For example, the 10 best trading days by percentage gain for the S&P 500 over the past three decades all occurred during recessions, often in close proximity to the worst days, according to a Wells Fargo analysis published last year.