Nashville Lives Up To Music City Name

6/17/2008 Lisa Ann Schleipfer A report released by the National Endowment for the Arts states musicians make up a higher percentage of the Nashville workforce than most other cities in the country.  As reported by The Tennessean today, the Artists in the Workforce: 1990-2005 report states that .65 percent of the Nashville labor force is made up of musicians. Nashville finds itself in the 10th spot on the list of metropolitan areas that have the highest percentage of artists in the workforce.  Music City ranked with 2.16 percent of its labor pool listed as artists. Artists across the country constitute 1.4 percent of the labor force, and number at almost 2 million workers. Dan Gioia, Chairman for the NEA said that the report documents the "maturing cultural life" in the United States.  "As the current survey demonstrates, the number of artists is now growing at approximately the same rate as the total labor force. The stability of this measurement suggests the place of artists in the American workforce has achieved a point of equilibrium," he wrote in the report's preface.