In one of the toughest budgetary climates in modern history, and amid renewed threats from Congressional Republicans to eliminate government art support, the advocacy group Americans for the Arts rolled out its National Arts Index on Monday. Essentially, the measure aims to speak for the arts in a language that even complete philistines might understand, offering a method to track the health of the creative economy in a way that's similar to how Gross Domestic Product tracks the growth of the global economy in general.

The index, put together by Muhlenberg College business professor Roland J. Kushner and Americans for the Arts vice president Randy Cohen, tracks 81 different indicators of economic health in the arts, drawing on such diverse sources as the Conference Board, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and the Mei Moses Art Index. Americans for the Arts's index takes as its baseline the level of the 81 variables in 2003, representing a score of 100. The amount of a score then represents how much the arts have grown or shrunk in relation to that level.

Thus, the highest score in the 12-year period charted by the project is 103.9 — a tie between 1999 and 2007, at the peaks of the tech and real estate bubbles, respectively. The index's lowest recorded score was for the most recent year for which data was available, 2009. It received a 97.7, reflecting the damage done by the Great Recession.

For visual arts supporters, the broad way that Americans for the Arts looks at the creative economy — embracing highly corporate industries as well as the doings of small arts nonprofits — makes for some difficulty when parsing the data, since Hollywood's success in getting audiences to shell out for 3D movies or the recording industry's battle with music piracy affect the overall "health" of the arts. However, the vast quantity of data aggregated in the inaugural National Arts Index study (available in either a 144 page full version, or a 15-page executive summary) does make for interesting reading. In particular, it's worth highlighting some of the facts that relate to "nonprofit arts organizations," a backbone of the visual arts economy:

– The data argues that there is a has been a massive growth — in fact, a glut — in the nonprofit art sector, which continues, despite tightened budgetary climes. "Putting this growth into context," the report states, "in the past decade, nonprofit arts organizations have grown 45 percent (75,000 to 109,000), a greater rate than all nonprofit organizations, which grew 32 percent (1,203,000 to 1,581,000)." It explains that this rate of growth is equivalent to a new nonprofit arts organization being created every three hours in the United States.

– This boom in the overall number of nonprofits, however, has not come in response to an increase in overall funding. By 2008, some 41 percent of arts organizations were running a deficit. But even before the economic crisis seriously hit in 2007, more than a third of nonprofits were running a deficit, because more organizations were competing for available funding that remained at roughly the same level.

– Also continuing a trend that's been unspooling since before the downturn, the arts are losing ground to other potential recipients for charitable donations: "The share of all philanthropy going to the arts has dropped from 4.9 percent to 4.0 percent over the past decade," the report notes. Between 2006 and 2009, arts support declined from 8 percent to 6.2 percent of total corporate giving.

– Another alarming trend: A noteworthy decline in the number of visitors to artistic events. "Between 2003 and 2009, the percentage of the population attending art museums and performing arts events both decreased (‐19 percent and ‐22 percent, respectively)," the report states.

– Despite this trend, more people are being pushed to try their luck as "self-employed" artists: "The self‐employed artist‐entrepreneur — active as poet, painter, musician, dancer, actor, and in many other artistic disciplines — is alive and well, with total numbers growing every year between 2000 and 2008 (from 509,000 to 676,000)."

– Presumably reflecting a nation that continues to become more diverse, one of the fastest growing areas of interest in the arts is "culturally and ethnically diverse arts organizations." Such organizations have doubled in number over the period tracked by the Arts Index, from 4,806 to 9,609.

– Last, but not least, for anyone thinking that Americans for the Arts's National Arts Index is nothing more than a transparent gambit to win more government funding, read on to the bracing conclusion of the summary version. There, the report proposes that given the profusion of underfunded organizations, the nonprofit model may have to be abandoned in favor of more experimental or market-oriented business models for the arts. Ways to cull the herd should be considered, the report suggests, in order to help the struggling organizations "die with dignity."