Why So Many Recording Artists Struggle to Get Health Insurance

When Chappell Roan took the Grammys stage on Feb. 2 to accept the award for best new artist, the 27-year-old singer was glammed to the nines. Yet her speech raised a markedly un-sexy issue: health insurance accessibility for recording artists.

“Record labels need to treat their artists as valuable employees with a livable wage and health insurance and protection,” she said. “Labels, we got you, but do you got us?”

Music industry lifers, like veteran executives of the major label system, knew the dilemma: theirs is an advance-against-services business in which they invest in an artist and even help develop an act’s sound, but musicians generally aren’t classified in their record label deals as employees, with the usual accompanying benefits.

Meanwhile, advocates saw the moment as a major win for raising awareness of a long festering issue that rarely gets national attention. “I was jumping up and down on my couch, squealing,” says Music Health Alliance founder and CEO Tatum Allsep, whose organization helps music professionals navigate the healthcare system. “It’s something we’ve got to talk about more.”

“I think she was speaking for everybody in the gig workspace, including performing artists who navigate one work assignment to another without any real job security and no benefits,” adds Michael LeRoy, a professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign’s School of Labor and Employment Relations.

Though it may come as a surprise to music fans perplexed by why this is so, consider that recording artists often encounter the same patchwork of options that many self-employed people in America do when it comes to health insurance. And unlike in the film and television industry, where workers who jump from set to set on major projects tend to flock to health plans co-governed by their unions, use of labor group-administered insurance among recording artists is spottier.  

In most label deals, artists sign as independent contractors, who do not typically enjoy standard staff benefits like employer-sponsored health insurance or a retirement plan, explains Lauren Spahn, a shareholder at Buchalter in Nashville, who works with both artists and labels. Depending on how a deal is structured, an artist might be able to put some of the advance they receive upon signing toward health insurance costs, and/or might negotiate a monthly stipend for such expenses, notes Spahn, who has seen such arrangements. Often, however, “those stipends are treated as advances, so when the artist starts making royalties, that funding has to be recouped.”

Without the perk of employer-sponsored health insurance, recording artists generally have two options: going through a union or the open market. Though perhaps best known as the labor group for movie and television actors, SAG-AFTRA counts around 3,500 recording artist members among its ranks. Vocalists signed to royalty deals at any of the three major label groups (Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group and Universal Music Group) and Walt Disney Records can gain access to the well-regarded union-administered health plan if they meet eligibility requirements, even if they aren’t members. Recording artists signed by subsidiaries of these labels are also able to join the plan, but not always those signed to indie labels distributed by any of these companies.

Still, the artist must generally make enough in covered earnings — currently the threshold is $27,540 — during a given year to qualify (roster artists, though, can get one extra year of coverage even if their income doesn’t qualify as long as they’re actively recording). This earnings minimum “seems like it’s not a lot, but that’s a lot for some new artists,” says Sally Velazquez, the founder and a partner at Empower Business Management whose clients include 21 Savage and Tinashe.

In her speech Roan requested that labels aid struggling artists — as she considered herself after a previous deal with WMG’s Atlantic Records went south (she later signed with UMG’s Island Records and went on to gain more than 46 million monthly listeners on Spotify).

Instrumentalists, meanwhile, can join the American Federation of Musicians, whose major-market Locals each offer their own individual multi-employer-funded health plans. But not everyone is aware that they can even join a union. “Most recording artists don’t realize that they can get it or even have it,” says Manatt partner Jordan Bromley, whose clients include the Eagles and ODESZA. “I think there needs to be a better job done to promote and distribute accurate information so that folks know how it works.”

Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, SAG-AFTRA’s national executive director, admits that overall awareness of the union option is an issue in a business where many artists are somewhat isolated from one another. “It has been a challenge for us as a union to really bring this to people’s attention because often it’s dealt with by a business manager, accountant, lawyer or somebody like that for [artists].”

Indeed, Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic, responding to Roan’s Grammy night appeal, shared that the band was tipped off early to the pre-AFTRA SAG health plan due to an accountant. “We did [join SAG] and I have had great health insurance for 35 years,” he wrote on X.

Beyond the unions, musicians can try other routes for the self-employed, like buying insurance through state or federal marketplaces or directly from insurance companies, if coverage via a spouse or side job is not available. “The best way is through the Affordable Care Act,” says the Music Health Alliance’s Allsep. “It’s just without someone [helping] you, it’s almost impossible to navigate episodic income” — like when an artist makes a certain amount of earnings on tour versus at their time off the road. (Also, if an artist has employees, like many superstars do, their own company can set up a health insurance plan, Velazquez notes.)

Casual Grammys viewers may be surprised to learn the numbers of those working in music who are insured. MusiCares, the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences’ nonprofit arm, through internal data and its annual Wellness in Music survey, found that around 87 to 90 percent of music workers have some sort of coverage, compared with 92 percent in the general U.S. population. The major concern for Theresa Wolters, the organization’s vice president of health and human services, is the quality of that care. “Many people we support do have health insurance. The problem is that it doesn’t cover, or they can’t afford the out-of-pocket cost for their preventive care services or their mental health services,” she notes.

Accessibility to mental health resources is a major problem. MusiCares has found from client data that suicidal ideation is higher amongst people who work in the business when compared with the general U.S. population, while a 2020 survey of touring professionals found that more than half of respondents demonstrated being at high risk for clinical depression.

Roan’s comments at the Grammys have sparked a couple new initiatives aimed at tackling this very issue: Roan herself donated $25,000 to launch a fund with the mental health-focused nonprofit Backline Care, which links music workers with case managers, offers grants and provides wellness resources on tour. Artists Sabrina Carpenter, Charli XCX and Noah Kahan also committed to the effort, after which they were joined by music organizations like AEG and the Wasserman Foundation. On Feb. 13, UMG announced a fund in concert with the Music Health Alliance to connect artists to providers and financial aid for mental health needs.

It’s a start, but not a comprehensive solution. Further unionization could help, while LeRoy suggests that the music business could follow the lead of the fast-food industry in California and attempt to legislate employment standards across the music sector. The Music Artists Coalition, Songwriters of North America, Black Music Action Coalition, SAG-AFTRA and Artist Rights Alliance is currently banding together to improve healthcare access for songwriters specifically — an effort that overlaps with recording artists, given that many musicians write their own songs.

Overall, several advocates say the first step is simply spreading awareness about the resources that already exist in the business, from unions to nonprofits to charities, that may not be familiar to developing artists that are accustomed to doing so much on their own. Crabtree-Ireland says that, while thanking Roan for her Grammys speech, he suggested they work together to broadcast more information about union benefits — she seemed receptive to it, he says, and he wants to continue the conversation.

“I think it’s great that [artists] are putting money where their mouth is,” adds Seven Bailey, an assistant professor at CSUN Northridge’s Music Industry Administration program. “I just think we need to focus on the education portion of it.”