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How can film and TV workers cope with Hollywood slowdown? Financial experts offer tips
For many film and TV industry professionals, it’s getting increasingly hard to wait for the production rebound that was widely expected after the strikes by writers and actors ended.
Cyd Wilson, executive director of the SAG-AFTRA Foundation, said the foundation’s emergency fund was getting 100 applications for assistance per day at the height of the strike; it’s down to about 10 a day now. But the problems have spread, from members with limited incomes from acting to the profession’s working class, she said.
“We are now seeing people who have earned $100,000, $200,000 a year” applying for help, Wilson said. “Those people have gone through all of their savings, they’ve tapped into their 401(k)s.”
Financial experts say that the best way to weather times like these is to have crafted a budget that helped you save while work was plentiful. But it’s not too late to make some money moves, budget or no budget, that can help keep you going until production returns to normal.
Here are some of the top suggestions for stretching dollars and ginning up extra income.
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Know where your money is going
Justin Pritchard, a certified financial planner in Montrose, Colo., said the first thing to do is to understand exactly what you’re spending your money on every month. “You may see some light bulbs go on or be surprised at where the money is going,” he said.
“One of the most common mistakes,” said Paco de Leon, a personal finance expert, author and host of the “Weird Finance” podcast, “is just not having any oversight over your finances and hoping it will all work out.”
Most people have two big-ticket items — housing and transportation — and the choices made there are the ones that really move the needle, said Neela Hummel, a certified financial planner in Santa Monica. Can you share your apartment or home to split the costs? Downgrade from a new Audi to a used Kia to slash your monthly payment?
In either case, Hummel said, the question is whether you’re enjoying the home or car enough to justify all the other things you’d have to give up to keep it.
Food is a third major expense. Joanne Danganan, a Los Angeles-based financial counselor and coach, said she tells her clients that the first thing to look at is how much they’re spending on dining out. If you don’t have the bandwidth to grocery shop and cook, she said, a good middle ground is to sign up for a service that supplies prepared meal kits.
Make a plan (and get help doing it)
As important as it is to understand your current spending habits, you also need to come up with a plan for narrowing the gap between your total spending and your sluggish current income. De Leon said the key is “making a little bit of progress every week.”
Hummel said it helps to get expert advice as soon as your finances are rocked by a big event (such as a strike). “We spend a lot of time undoing things that we wish we could have gotten to before those decisions were made,” she said.
In addition to professionals who charge for their services, film and TV professionals have access to several free sources of advice on budgeting and finances. A good place to start is the Entertainment Community Fund, formerly known as the Actors Fund, which offers a multipart financial wellness program, as well as workshops on financial guidance, career-related concerns and housing issues, among many other topics.
All of the sessions are virtual at the moment, and open to anyone who identifies as part of the creative community.
“One of the strengths of our organization is that we provide wrap-around services,” said Tina Hookom, the fund’s director of social services. People who come in for help with one issue — they need affordable housing, for example — will be connected to a full range of resources.
The Times also offers a free newsletter series on budgeting and personal finances called “Totally Worth It,” which you can sign up for below.
Look for new sources of income
“I have advice that nobody wants to hear, which is, do whatever you can to bring cash to your household,” de Leon said. That applies whether you think the current troubles are just a blip or a foretaste of the job losses that technological changes are bringing to the industry, she said.
She suggested starting your search for more work by tapping the network of contacts you’ve made. Focus on people beyond your immediate circle of friends, she said, because most opportunities often come from contacts a few degrees removed from you.
Danganan suggested becoming a coach or tutor online, offering to teach what you learned working in the film and TV business to students within the industry — and outside it. “There are plenty of industry folks who have transferable skills,” she said.
For example, Hummel said, a manager of production facilities could work as an event planner; or a TV writer could edit copy. To figure out where you might apply your skills, she said, think not about your job title, but about what you actually do.
Temp agencies are good sources of short-term gigs and of ideas for how to put Hollywood know-how to work in other industries.
Hookom said just because you may need to look outside the industry for more income, that doesn’t mean giving up on a career in entertainment. She urged struggling workers to sign up for workshops at the Entertainment Community Fund’s career center, which are designed to get people to think strategically about their situations.
The center can connect you to resources for freelancers, entrepreneurial opportunities and meaningful work that’s not far removed from what you’re doing now, she said. If necessary, it can also help prepare you for a transition out of the entertainment business.
Negotiate your bills and interest rates
Lately, Hookom said, the Entertainment Community Fund has been seeing industry professionals dealing with a lot of debt. One of its financial wellness workshops deals specifically with how to manage debt, including negotiating with creditors for more favorable payment terms.
Credit card companies can be talked into lowering the interest rates they charge on unpaid balances. You may also be able to move the due date for your next payment back, either on the company’s website or by phone.
Medical debt is often negotiable too. Like gas stations, healthcare providers will often offer a lower price to people paying cash, so if you’re uninsured or underinsured, that’s an option worth exploring. Many providers will agree to a payment plan as well. Before you start paying any large bills, though, make sure to get an itemized list of the charges so you can make sure it’s accurate.
Another option for hospital debt, according to NPR’s Life Kit team: seeing if you qualify for the institution’s charitable care program. Federal tax law requires nonprofit hospitals to offer free or discounted care to lower-income patients, so it’s worth exploring. The website for Dollar For, an advocacy group for patients, offers help in determining whether you’re eligible.
Also, how old is your debt? In California, the statute of limitations for suing to collect a debt is four years in most cases. If it’s been more than four years since your last payment on the amount you owe, you can’t be sued for the balance, although debt collectors can still ask you to pay it anyway.
Don’t dig a deeper hole
If you are carrying a balance on multiple credit cards and have other bills that are generating interest charges, one possible action is a loan to consolidate all those debts into one monthly bill. The potential benefit here is that you might be able to find a loan with a lower interest rate than your credit card charges; according to Bankrate.com, the average interest rate for a personal loan was 12.22%.
The downside, though, is that clearing your credit card debt could backfire if you kept spending more on those cards than you could afford to pay off each month. These consolidation loans also may have high or hidden fees; for a good guide to how the loans work and what to consider, see these explainers from Credit Karma and NerdWallet.
A second possibility is transferring debts on old credit cards to a new one with a low introductory interest rate. Plenty of banks are offering 0% interest on transferred balances for up to 18 months; you could save hundreds to thousands of dollars in interest charges if you’re able to pay off your balance during that period, even after factoring the transfer fee.
If you’re burdened by federal student loan debt, consider a new income-based repayment method from the U.S. Department of Education called the Saving on a Valuable Education Plan that has several advantages over its predecessors. The monthly payments are lower, and borrowers who make their full income-based payments will have any excess interest charges waived. Under previous plans, if your income is so low that your monthly payment doesn’t even cover the interest charges on your loan, the unpaid interest is added to the amount you owed.
Times staff writer Jessica Roy contributed to this report.
The lobby of Shutters on the Beach, the luxury oceanfront hotel in Santa Monica that is usually abuzz with tourists and entertainment professionals, had by Thursday transformed into a refuge for Los Angeles residents displaced by the raging wildfires that have ripped through thousands of acres and leveled entire neighborhoods to ash.
In the middle of one table sat something that has probably never been in the lobby of Shutters before: a portable plastic goldfish tank. “It’s my daughter’s,” said Kevin Fossee, 48. Mr. Fossee and his wife, Olivia Barth, 45, had evacuated to the hotel on Tuesday evening shortly after the fire in the Los Angeles Pacific Palisades area flared up near their home in Malibu.
Suddenly, an evacuation alert came in. Every phone in the lobby wailed at once, scaring young children who began to cry inconsolably. People put away their phones a second later when they realized it was a false alarm.
Similar scenes have been unfolding across other Los Angeles hotels as the fires spread and the number of people under evacuation orders soars above 100,000. IHG, which includes the Intercontinental, Regent and Holiday Inn chains, said 19 of its hotels across the Los Angeles and Pasadena areas were accommodating evacuees.
The Palisades fire, which has been raging since Tuesday and has become the most destructive in the history of Los Angeles, struck neighborhoods filled with mansions owned by the wealthy, as well as the homes of middle-class families who have owned them for generations. Now they all need places to stay.
Many evacuees turned to a Palisades WhatsApp group that in just a few days has grown from a few hundred to over 1,000 members. Photos, news, tips on where to evacuate, hotel discount codes and pet policies were being posted with increasing rapidity as the fires spread.
At the midcentury modern Beverly Hilton hotel, which looms over the lawns and gardens of Beverly Hills, seven miles and a world away from the ash-strewed Pacific Palisades, parking ran out on Wednesday as evacuees piled in. Guests had to park in another lot a mile south and take a shuttle back.
In the lobby of the hotel, which regularly hosts glamorous events like the recent Golden Globe Awards, guests in workout clothes wrestled with children, pets and hastily packed roll-aboards.
Many of the guests were already familiar with each other from their neighborhoods, and there was a resigned intimacy as they traded stories. “You can tell right away if someone is a fire evacuee by whether they are wearing sweats or have a dog with them,” said Sasha Young, 34, a photographer. “Everyone I’ve spoken with says the same thing: We didn’t take enough.”
The Hotel June, a boutique hotel with a 1950s hipster vibe a mile north of Los Angeles International Airport, was offering evacuees rooms for $125 per night.
“We were heading home to the Palisades from the airport when we found out about the evacuations,” said Julia Morandi, 73, a retired science educator who lives in the Palisades Highlands neighborhood. “When we checked in, they could see we were stressed, so the manager gave us drinks tickets and told us, ‘We take care of our neighbors.’”
Hotels are also assisting tourists caught up in the chaos, helping them make arrangements to fly home (as of Friday, the airport was operating normally) and waiving cancellation fees. A spokeswoman for Shutters said its guests included domestic and international tourists, but on Thursday, few could be spotted among the displaced Angelenos. The heated outdoor pool that overlooks the ocean and is usually surrounded by sunbathers was completely deserted because of the dangerous air quality.
“I think I’m one of the only tourists here,” said Pavel Francouz, 34, a hockey scout who came to Los Angeles from the Czech Republic for a meeting on Tuesday before the fires ignited.
“It’s weird to be a tourist,” he said, describing the eerily empty beaches and the hotel lobby packed with crying children, families, dogs and suitcases. “I can’t imagine what it would feel like to be these people,” he said, adding, “I’m ready to go home.”
Follow New York Times Travel on Instagram and sign up for our weekly Travel Dispatch newsletter to get expert tips on traveling smarter and inspiration for your next vacation. Dreaming up a future getaway or just armchair traveling? Check out our 52 Places to Go in 2025.
The downtown Los Angeles Macy’s department store, situated on 7th Street and a cornerstone of retail in the area, will shut down as the company prepares to close 150 underperforming locations in an effort to revamp and modernize its business.
The iconic retail center announced this week the first 66 closures, including nine in California spanning from Sacramento to San Diego. Stores will also close in Florida, New York and Georgia, among other states. The closures are part of a broader company strategy to bolster sustainability and profitability.
Macy’s is not alone in its plan to slim down and rejuvenate sales. The retailer Kohl’s announced on Friday that it would close 27 poor performing stores by April, including 10 in California and one in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Westchester. Kohl’s will also shut down its San Bernardino e-commerce distribution center in May.
“Kohl’s continues to believe in the health and strength of its profitable store base” and will have more than 1,100 stores remaining after the closures, the company said in a statement.
Macy’s announced its plan last February to end operations at roughly 30% of its stores by 2027, following disappointing quarterly results that included a $71-million loss and nearly 2% decline in sales. The company will invest in its remaining 350 stores, which have the potential to “generate more meaningful value,” according to a release.
“We are closing underproductive Macy’s stores to allow us to focus our resources and prioritize investments in our go-forward stores, where customers are already responding positively to better product offerings and elevated service,” Chief Executive Tony Spring said in a statement. “Closing any store is never easy.”
Macy’s brick-and-mortar locations also faced a setback in January 2024, when the company announced the closures of five stores, including the location at Simi Valley Town Center. At the same time, Macy’s said it would layoff 3.5% of its workforce, equal to about 2,350 jobs.
Farther north, Walgreens announced this week that it would shutter 12 stores across San Francisco due to “increased regulatory and reimbursement pressures,” CBS News reported.
When the Supreme Court hears arguments on Friday over whether protecting national security requires TikTok to be sold or closed, the justices will be working in the shadow of three First Amendment precedents, all influenced by the climate of their times and by how much the justices trusted the government.
During the Cold War and in the Vietnam era, the court refused to credit the government’s assertions that national security required limiting what newspapers could publish and what Americans could read. More recently, though, the court deferred to Congress’s judgment that combating terrorism justified making some kinds of speech a crime.
The court will most likely act quickly, as TikTok faces a Jan. 19 deadline under a law enacted in April by bipartisan majorities. The law’s sponsors said the app’s parent company, ByteDance, is controlled by China and could use it to harvest Americans’ private data and to spread covert disinformation.
The court’s decision will determine the fate of a powerful and pervasive cultural phenomenon that uses a sophisticated algorithm to feed a personalized array of short videos to its 170 million users in the United States. For many of them, and particularly younger ones, TikTok has become a leading source of information and entertainment.
As in earlier cases pitting national security against free speech, the core question for the justices is whether the government’s judgments about the threat TikTok is said to pose are sufficient to overcome the nation’s commitment to free speech.
Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, told the justices that he “is second to none in his appreciation and protection of the First Amendment’s right to free speech.” But he urged them to uphold the law.
“The right to free speech enshrined in the First Amendment does not apply to a corporate agent of the Chinese Communist Party,” Mr. McConnell wrote.
Jameel Jaffer, the executive director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, said that stance reflected a fundamental misunderstanding.
“It is not the government’s role to tell us which ideas are worth listening to,” he said. “It’s not the government’s role to cleanse the marketplace of ideas or information that the government disagrees with.”
The Supreme Court’s last major decision in a clash between national security and free speech was in 2010, in Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project. It concerned a law that made it a crime to provide even benign assistance in the form of speech to groups said to engage in terrorism.
One plaintiff, for instance, said he wanted to help the Kurdistan Workers’ Party find peaceful ways to protect the rights of Kurds in Turkey and to bring their claims to the attention of international bodies.
When the case was argued, Elena Kagan, then the U.S. solicitor general, said courts should defer to the government’s assessments of national security threats.
“The ability of Congress and of the executive branch to regulate the relationships between Americans and foreign governments or foreign organizations has long been acknowledged by this court,” she said. (She joined the court six months later.)
The court ruled for the government by a 6-to-3 vote, accepting its expertise even after ruling that the law was subject to strict scrutiny, the most demanding form of judicial review.
“The government, when seeking to prevent imminent harms in the context of international affairs and national security, is not required to conclusively link all the pieces in the puzzle before we grant weight to its empirical conclusions,” Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote for the majority.
In its Supreme Court briefs defending the law banning TikTok, the Biden administration repeatedly cited the 2010 decision.
“Congress and the executive branch determined that ByteDance’s ownership and control of TikTok pose an unacceptable threat to national security because that relationship could permit a foreign adversary government to collect intelligence on and manipulate the content received by TikTok’s American users,” Elizabeth B. Prelogar, the U.S. solicitor general, wrote, “even if those harms had not yet materialized.”
Many federal laws, she added, limit foreign ownership of companies in sensitive fields, including broadcasting, banking, nuclear facilities, undersea cables, air carriers, dams and reservoirs.
While the court led by Chief Justice Roberts was willing to defer to the government, earlier courts were more skeptical. In 1965, during the Cold War, the court struck down a law requiring people who wanted to receive foreign mail that the government said was “communist political propaganda” to say so in writing.
That decision, Lamont v. Postmaster General, had several distinctive features. It was unanimous. It was the first time the court had ever held a federal law unconstitutional under the First Amendment’s free expression clauses.
It was the first Supreme Court opinion to feature the phrase “the marketplace of ideas.” And it was the first Supreme Court decision to recognize a constitutional right to receive information.
That last idea figures in the TikTok case. “When controversies have arisen,” a brief for users of the app said, “the court has protected Americans’ right to hear foreign-influenced ideas, allowing Congress at most to require labeling of the ideas’ origin.”
Indeed, a supporting brief from the Knight First Amendment Institute said, the law banning TikTok is far more aggressive than the one limiting access to communist propaganda. “While the law in Lamont burdened Americans’ access to specific speech from abroad,” the brief said, “the act prohibits it entirely.”
Zephyr Teachout, a law professor at Fordham, said that was the wrong analysis. “Imposing foreign ownership restrictions on communications platforms is several steps removed from free speech concerns,” she wrote in a brief supporting the government, “because the regulations are wholly concerned with the firms’ ownership, not the firms’ conduct, technology or content.”
Six years after the case on mailed propaganda, the Supreme Court again rejected the invocation of national security to justify limiting speech, ruling that the Nixon administration could not stop The New York Times and The Washington Post from publishing the Pentagon Papers, a secret history of the Vietnam War. The court did so in the face of government warnings that publishing would imperil intelligence agents and peace talks.
“The word ‘security’ is a broad, vague generality whose contours should not be invoked to abrogate the fundamental law embodied in the First Amendment,” Justice Hugo Black wrote in a concurring opinion.
The American Civil Liberties Union told the justices that the law banning TikTok “is even more sweeping” than the prior restraint sought by the government in the Pentagon Papers case.
“The government has not merely forbidden particular communications or speakers on TikTok based on their content; it has banned an entire platform,” the brief said. “It is as though, in Pentagon Papers, the lower court had shut down The New York Times entirely.”
Mr. Jaffer of the Knight Institute said the key precedents point in differing directions.
“People say, well, the court routinely defers to the government in national security cases, and there is obviously some truth to that,” he said. “But in the sphere of First Amendment rights, the record is a lot more complicated.”
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