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The Data-Center Dividend for Workers

Jobs and wages are booming in counties that welcome AI.

By

The Editorial Board

Sept. 3, 2026 5:40 pm ET

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An Amazon Web Services data center in Stone Ridge, Va. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

President Trump has drawn condemnation for suggesting that communities that block data centers will end up “backwards and poor.” His remark was hyperbolic, but he’s right that areas embracing data centers are enjoying more jobs and faster wage growth.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics last week published industry-level data on state and county employment and wages through March of this year. We compared growth in Loudoun County, Va.—known as Data Center Alley—with other Washington, D.C., suburbs since early 2020 before the pandemic. The disparities are striking.

Loudoun has long been a hub for data-center development because of its easy zoning, relatively low-cost energy and geographical proximity to telecom network exchanges. It’s an exurban county with more land for growth than older suburbs closer to D.C. But it has also embraced growth, unlike those older suburbs. Construction growth has accelerated amid the AI boom, with permitted data-center space increasing by some 150% between 2020 and 2025. Jobs have followed.

Most counties surrounding the capital have experienced little job growth since the pandemic. Loudoun is the exception, with employment surging 17.4% since early 2020. Jobs increased by 1% or less in Fairfax County, Va., and Prince George’s County, Md. Virginia’s Arlington County (-7.3%) and Maryland’s Montgomery County shed jobs (-5.6%).

Construction jobs increased 63% in Loudoun, far more than in Fairfax (6.3%), Arlington (8.2%), Prince George’s (8.3%), and Montgomery (a 12.8% decline). Job growth from data-center construction also appears to be having positive spillover labor effects in other industries.

Employment in leisure and hospitality increased 6.8% in Loudoun while declining in other D.C. suburbs since early 2020. Average weekly wage growth for leisure and hospitality workers in Loudoun over this period (69%) was double that in Fairfax (26%), Arlington (29%), Montgomery (31%) and Prince George’s (27%).

Building and operating data centers may have increased demand for blue-collar workers and bid up wages. Loudoun’s fast-growing workforce may have increased spending at restaurants and tips for hospitality workers. If more construction workers are grabbing drinks after shifts, bartenders make more money.

Loudoun’s prosperity isn’t an isolated example. Meta’s massive data-center project in Richland Parish in Louisiana is helping revive that poor, rural farming community. Since the first quarter of last year, private employment in Richland has grown 41%, and average weekly wages have shot up 61%. Neighboring parishes have experienced little or no growth.

In a single year, Richland’s construction workforce has risen more than 10-fold, with average weekly wages up 182%. That amounts to an annual $86,000 pay increase for construction workers. Employment in leisure and hospitality has increased 21.5%, with average weekly wages in the industry soaring 34%.

While building data centers won’t provide lifetime employment, many workers will be needed to run and maintain them, as well as the plants that power them. Politicians in both parties fret that AI will increase the concentration of wealth and leave rural communities behind. Folks in Richland who are prospering probably don’t see it that way.

Data centers can help to spread prosperity without government intervention and income redistribution. Could that be the real reason America’s political class is turning against them?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5900499&forum_id=2\u0026mark_id=3986969#50115153)

This looks like something that a protester would have AI generate.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5900499&forum_id=2\u0026mark_id=3986969#50115159)