By Doug Kelly:
Data centers are powerful local economic engines, creating tens of thousands of high-paying jobs, raising billions in tax revenue for local priorities, and accelerating economic and educational opportunities for working families. Here are five recent stories that show the importance of data centers to local economic development.
- Meta’s Louisiana investment is reshaping a rural parish
Meta announced this week that it will expand its Richland Parish data center to 5 gigawatts of computing capacity, bringing its total investment in the region to more than $50 billion. A transformational investment in a rural parish of about 20,000 people.
Louisiana businesses have received more than $1.6 billion in contracts since construction began in December 2024, and Meta plans to invest over $1 billion in local roads, water and wastewater systems on top of the more than 1,000 permanent jobs the project will support.
The impact is clearest in the schools. Thanks to the new tax revenue, Richland Parish teachers received annual bonuses of more than $50,000 this year, up from $10,000 the year before. The superintendent says the money is also helping the parish recruit stronger teaching candidates than it has in years.
- Pennsylvania landowners are sharing in the upside
In Salem Township, Pennsylvania, 96 landowners sold roughly 1,700 acres to data center developer QTS for more than $500 million, one of the largest coordinated land acquisitions for data center development in the country. Local landowners, community members, and officials worked together to negotiate a deal that made sense for their community. On average, families received more than $5 million through the sale, and the township is also sharing in the proceeds through a $9 million community benefit agreement funding emergency services and road improvements.
- Hyperscalers are opening free pathways into the skilled trades
America’s data center buildout runs on electricians, welders, pipefitters and fiber installers, and our country simply does not have enough of them.
So America’s tech leaders, led by Meta and Google, have stepped forward to accelerate the development of this workforce by reducing all barriers to participation. These programs cost participants nothing, with tuition, travel, lodging and a daily stipend all covered, and they require no prior experience. Graduates earn industry-recognized credentials and a guaranteed job the day they finish. Initial programs are operating in Ohio, Indiana, Louisiana and Texas.
American workers have noticed. One fiber technician program drew 35,000 applications in its first seven days for roughly 1,000 openings. In Columbus, a Google-supported program has placed 90 percent of its graduates into jobs paying between $35 and $65 an hour.
- Wisconsin is putting a failed development site back to work
Microsoft has completed the first phase of its data center campus in Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin, built on land set aside for a manufacturing development that failed. The work finished ahead of schedule.
Nearly 10,000 construction workers built the facility over two years. It now supports about 550 full-time employees, growing to roughly 800 as a second building comes online, and during construction, Microsoft bought directly from 29 businesses across 11 Wisconsin counties, with ripple effects reaching more local companies through supplier networks, subcontracting, and other services.
- Amazon is paying for the infrastructure it uses
Amazon’s $12 billion investment in northwest Louisiana will create 540 full-time jobs at wages roughly 50 percent above the state average, support some 1,700 additional positions, and put as many as 1,500 people to work during construction.
Just as important is how it’s paid for. Amazon is investing up to $400 million in public water infrastructure and covering the full cost of the energy infrastructure its facilities require, including substations and transmission upgrades that strengthen the grid for every customer on it. That is the standard that communities should hold companies to.
The research confirms the local economic impact of data centers
A recent Brookings Institution study examined approximately 770 data center facilities across 93 counties, measured against roughly 3,000 comparable counties that never received one.
In counties that received their first large data center:
- Total private employment rose 4 to 5 percent over five to six years, construction employment rose 11 percent and information-sector employment rose 22 percent. In a typical county, that adds up to roughly 2,000 to 4,000 additional jobs.
- Wages rose 3 to 4 percent, and those gains went to existing workers, not just new hires.
- Home prices also showed no significant increase, meaning those gains are not swallowed up by higher housing costs.
The evidence is now in. Built the right way, these projects deliver jobs, wages, tax revenue and stronger infrastructure to communities that have too often been passed over.