Self-Employed Music Industry Workers to be Covered in Stimulus Package
In a spot of good news, the latest piece of U.S. legislation surrounding the Coronavirus pandemic includes language to provide financial relief to music workers. The $2 trillion relief package will allow self-employed musicians, musicians, and songwriters who make under $100,00 per year to apply for grants and loans. The bill has been approved by the Senate and is expected to be confirmed by the House of Representatives on Friday.
Songwriters of North America and Nashville Songwriters Association International helped to spearhead the legislation by working closely with Rep. Ted Deutch, (D-FL), Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Reps. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) and Zoe Lofgren (D-CA). The stimulus package specifically says “self-employed, sole proprietors, and independent contractors” are covered under the bill.
“Here’s what this boils down to me: They’re going to be eligible for loans and grants and possibly forgiveness of those loans if they can’t make up the income at the end of the year,” NSAI executive director Bart Herbison told Rolling Stone. “As urgent as the Music Modernization Act was, this is more urgent. This is going to save careers. This is going to give the workers, the creators of music, a support system — it’s going to help them sustain the jobs. We’re talking about tens of thousands of people. This is a local nightclub performer, a sound engineer, a recording artist, everyone.”
Larger scale relief also included a $25 million package for the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC and a $75 million package for the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA).
We’ll keep you updated with more details as they become available.
Thanks Kevin – this is really important right now. Keep the community updated. God Bless and stay safe!
The New Zealand Government announced a 12 week payment scheme to help the self employed and small businesses on March 17th, and got the payments out within a few days. All gigs pretty much fell over that week as venues closed and gatherings were discouraged. Such a relief for the likes of me and so many other self employed musicians. This will help get us through. I think the Government here has done a great job with trying to stay ahead of things. We began a 4 week minimum full lockdown over the whole country on March 26.