Majority support ‘artist wage’ grants
Icelandic author Andri Snær Magnason, one of the recipients of this year's art grants.
More than half of Icelanders support the current system of State-paid grants for the arts in the form of a monthly wage to a wide-ranging group of selected artists.
53.2% of respondents to a recent MMR opinion poll said that they favoured the system, under which selected artists are paid a taxable ‘wage’ of almost ISK 340,000 (approx. €2,400) per month from taxpayers’ money.
Support for ‘artist wages’ is on the increase, with the proportion of the population in favour today some 7 percentage points higher than in February 2013 and over 14% higher than in March 2010.
People under the age of 30, people living in Greater Reykjavik, and people in high-income homes are most likely to support the State art grant.
A division also emerges across political lines. Supporters of the two parties in Iceland’s current governing coalition – the Progressive Party (‘Framsóknarflokkurinn’) and the Independence Party (‘Sjálfstæðisflokkurinn’) – are more likely to oppose the system (77% and 68%, respectively).
On the other hand, 80% of supporters of the two main opposition parties – the Social Democratic Alliance (‘Samfylkingin’) and the Left-Green Movement (‘Vinstrihreyfingin - grænt framboð’) – are in favour of the current system.
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