Findings, Section 3: Pay and Promotions

Living Expenses

Almost three-quarters of art museum workers (74%) cannot always cover basic living expenses (e.g., rent, utilities, food, childcare) with their compensation from museum jobs (see fig. 24). While this problem is much more acute for part-time workers, 97% of whom cannot always cover basic living expenses, it is also true for the majority of full-time workers (71%). In early discussions of these findings with colleagues, we frequently heard the suggestion that cost of living might be a key driver of workers’ ability to cover living expenses. In response, we developed an index of low, medium, and high cost-of-living areas to test this theory, and we found that the ability to always cover basic expenses varies very little with the cost of living across different geographies (ranging from 27% in the lowest cost-of-living areas to 25% in medium and high cost areas). While we know that cost of living and museum compensation vary by location, this finding suggests that, across the board, art museum workers are underpaid compared to the average salaries in their locations. So, while a museum worker in a high cost-of-living area is likely paid more than their counterpart in a low cost-of-living area, they experience similar challenges in covering basic living expenses.

There are also differences in the ability to meet basic expenses when looking at workers by race, ethnicity, and gender, which are likely driven by the greater diversity in entry-level and experienced non-manager roles. For example, just 8% of non-binary or other gender workers are always able to meet basic living expenses with their museum incomes, compared to 26% of women and 29% of men. white workers are more likely than average to be able to always meet their living expenses (29% vs. 26% average), while Black (19%), multiracial (17%), Latinx (16%), Asian (16%), and Native American or Alaska Native workers (11%) are less likely than average to be able to always cover expenses.

A relevant study of arts sector workers by Amy Whitaker and Gregory Wolniak¹³ examined the proportion of overall household income that arts sector employees earned, with the assumption that the lower an individual’s proportion of household income, the greater their safety net of economic stability will be. The authors found that this “safety net” effect was greatest among white arts workers, whose earnings made up 71% of household income compared to 80% among Black arts workers. In considering livable wages for museum workers, it’s worth considering both individual pay and total household pay, particularly when the safety nets afforded by combined household pay are unequally distributed.

Perceptions of Pay

Most art museum workers believe their peers make more money than they do. Almost half (48%) believe that they’re underpaid compared to people at other art museums with comparable position levels, and this belief is much more common than thinking their pay is about equal (39%) or above others (13%) (see fig. 26). The preponderance of people who believe they are paid less than peers in comparable positions may be due to low levels of pay transparency in the sector.¹⁴ Just 11% of museum workers shared that they believe their workplace provides salary ranges for all positions or levels with employees, and only 38% believe their workplace posts salary ranges for open positions.

Interestingly, the sense of being underpaid relative to peers holds pretty constant across levels of seniority. What matters in perceptions of pay relative to peers is the budget size of the institution; among those at institutions with the most resources, 39% believe they’re paid less than those at other art museums, compared to 67% at lesser-endowed institutions.

Pay Satisfaction

Art museum workers are substantially more dissatisfied with their pay levels than US workers overall. Among such workers, just 29% rate their satisfaction as high compared to 54% of US employees overall (see fig. 27).

While institutional budget size heavily influences perceptions of relative pay, even those working in the most well-resourced museums, who tend to believe they’re paid more than peers, report pay satisfaction only marginally higher than those in museums with the fewest resources (33% in the largest museums vs. 25% in the smallest). This suggests that a sense of being better paid than peers still isn’t making people feel better or more satisfied with their levels of pay.

Promotions

Promotions are slow and unevenly distributed across the sector. We asked workers about three types of promotion: “full” promotions, with title change and pay increase beyond cost-of-living adjustment; “hollow” promotions, with title change only; and “pay-focused” promotions, with a pay increase beyond cost-of-living adjustment but without a title change (see fig. 29).

Full Promotions

Fewer than a third (31%) of art museum workers have ever received a full promotion, even with an average tenure of more than seven years within their current institution. Promotions are also concentrated in people; almost half (47%) of those who have ever received a full promotion have received more than one of this type of promotion. On average it takes a remarkable twelve years to receive a full promotion in art museums.

The rates of ever having received a full promotion are highest among white workers (35%), with substantially lower rates among multiracial (22%), Asian (21%), Latinx (20%), Black (19%), and Native American or Alaska Native workers (17%). Partially explaining the higher likelihood of promotion by race and ethnicity is the difference in tenure at institutions; white workers have the longest average tenures at their museums, at 7.5 years. However, Black and Native American or Alaska Native workers, who are least likely to have ever received a promotion, have longer tenures than other groups (at 5.5 and 6 years, respectively), so tenure does not fully explain these differences by race and ethnicity.

The data shared above in this section was provided by respondents to the all-staff survey. However, we also asked HR officers how many staff received full promotions for the past calendar year specifically within each pay band (after pay increases).

While the majority of promotions are happening at the $25,000 to $75,000 pay levels, those in the highest pay bands are disproportionately more likely to have received a recent promotion (see fig. 33). Partly explaining this pattern is the number of jobs available at each pay band as well as different institutional priorities for retention. There are diversity implications for art museum staff dependent upon where promotions are happening (knowing workers at lower pay bands are more diverse) and at what frequency.

Promotion rates are particularly low among staff earning less than $25,000 (at 2%) and among those earning between $25,000 and $50,000 (at 10%). Promotion rates range from 11 to 17% in pay bands between $50,000 and $200,000. The likelihood of receiving a recent promotion jumps to a staggering 41% among those making between $200,000 and $300,000, and 66% among those earning more than $300,000.

Hollow Promotions

Another type of promotion—one that’s arguably less desirable—includes a title change but no accompanying pay increase beyond cost-of-living adjustment. Overall, 12% of museum staff have received one or more of these types of promotions. Women are more likely to receive hollow promotions (at 13%) compared to men (9%), even when tenure at the museum is taken into account.

Hollow promotions are more common among manager- and executive-level staff (at 16% and 14%, respectively) compared to entry-level workers (4%) (see fig. 34).

Pay-Focused Promotions

The final promotion type includes a pay raise beyond cost-of-living adjustment but without a change in title, which has been received by 31% of museum staff. Rates of pay-focused promotions are the same for men and women (32%) and, when controlled for average tenure, are a little higher among women (.09 per year) than men (.07).

white workers are most likely to receive pay-focused promotions (35%), with significantly lower rates for Native American or Alaska Native (19%) and Latinx workers (24%). When controlling for average tenure, the differences by race and ethnicity shift for most groups with the exception of Native American and Alaska Native staff, who continue to have the lowest pay-focused promotion rate (.05 per year). Latinx workers are at the average of .10, followed by white and Black (.11), multiracial (.12), Asian (.13), and MENA workers (.16).

Tenure is a particularly powerful predictor of pay-focused promotions, with rates ranging linearly from 12% of entry-level workers up to 50% of executive-level workers (see fig. 35).

Budgets for Staff Compensation and Benefits

Given the recent and growing pressures around pay and promotion for museum leaders,¹⁶ it is notable that art museum directors reported the majority of annual budgets are already being allocated to paying workers and providing benefits. On average, art museums allocate 58% of their annual budgets to staff compensation and benefits. This rate is highest among culturally specific art museums (at 68%) and lowest among encyclopedic art museums (54%).

Satisfaction with benefits was a particularly bright spot among the job satisfaction measures discussed above, and the only measure in which art museum workers ranked their satisfaction higher than US workers overall (see fig. 36). For seven of the benefits measured by MMF, comparisons with private industry workers are available from March 2022¹⁷ from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, broken out by full-time and part-time status. Comparing art museum benefits with US workers overall, it is clear that part-time museum workers in particular fare better on almost all core benefits than part-time US workers overall—sometimes by as much as a 20–30% margin. Among full-time workers, museum workers are more likely to be receiving life insurance, employee assistance programs, and commuter benefits than US workers overall, but they’re on par or a little under for other benefits (paid time off, paid sick leave, health insurance, and retirement contributions).

Turnover

Looking broadly at departures across all employment categories (full-time, part-time, temporary, and paid interns) over the past calendar year, most of the turnover (69%) happening in art museums is among employees making less than $50,000 annually (see fig. 38).