$328 Billion: U.S. beer industry's stake in American economy

The Beer Institute and the National Beer Wholesalers Association released their Beer Serves America economic report on the nation’s beer industry just ahead of Memorial Day, which marks one of the top beer-selling holidays of the year and the start of the summer beer-selling season. The study found the U.S. beer industry supports more than 2.1 million good-paying, local jobs in a wide range of industries, including farming, manufacturing, construction, and transportation in every community across the country.

— Beer Institute, 21 May 2019.

Key statistics

• The beer industry contributes $328.4 billion in economic output, which is equal to 1.6 percent of U.S. Gross Domestic Product.
• There are over seven thousand active breweries in the U.S.
• Brewers and beer importers directly employ nearly 70,000 Americans.
• There are over three thousand beer distributors in the U.S. The number of distributor jobs has increased by more than nineteen percent in the last decade, to nearly 141,600.
• Combined, brewers and distributors directly employ more than 200,000 Americans.
• Every job in a brewery supports another thirty-one jobs in other industries.
• Large and mid-sized brewers and beer importers provide about fifty-eight percent of brewing jobs.
• Suppliers to the brewing industry —enterprises that manufacture bottles and cans, cardboard case boxes, brewing equipment, marketing displays, etc.— generate nearly $102 billion in economic activity and are responsible for almost 436,650 jobs alone.
• Overall, the beer industry generates more than 2.1 million jobs.
• Beer produces $58.6 billion in tax revenues equal to nearly forty percent of the retail price paid for these products by consumers, comprising:
  • $46.3 billion in revenues to federal, state and local governments
  • $4.8 billion in federal and state excise taxes for consumption of beer
  • $6.6 billion in state sales taxes
  • $816 million in city and county excise taxes and other beer-specific local taxes.

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Growth of Beer Industry

Compare these 2018 data to those from, say, the 2014 Beer Serves America report:

• $253 billion in economic activity (1.5% of GDP).
• 1.75 million jobs.
• $48.5 billion in tax revenue.

In 2018, economic activity and jobs are up, while taxes collected are down. And yet, the beer industry —for whom the federal excise tax rate has not changed since 1976 (when it was went down!)— asks for a tax cut.

Just sayin.'

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• Press release and summary, from the The Beer Institute: here.
• Full report — BEER SERVES AMERICA: A Study of the U.S. Beer Industry’s Economic Contribution: here (pdf).
• A detailed explanation of methodology is given on pp. 4-10 of the report.

  John Dunham & Associates (JDA) conducted the research in concert with the Beer Institute and NBWA. This work used standard econometric models first developed by the U.S. Forest Service, and now maintained by IMPLAN. Data came from industry sources, government publications, and Infogroup.

• The National Beer Wholesalers Association (NBWA) was founded in 1938 as a trade association representing beer distributors in the U.S.
• The Beer Institute was founded in 1986 by the then independent Miller Brewing Company and its allies in the brewing industry (effectively destroying the United States Brewers Association which had been founded during the Civil War) to be a "national trade association for the American brewing industry, representing both large and small brewers, as well as importers and industry suppliers." Most members of the Beer Institute are large international brewing conglomerates —and associated businesses— operating in the United States. A few 'craft breweries, such as Brooklyn Brewery, Boston Beer/Dogfish Head, Deschutes, are members. The institute's member list is no longer online.
• This post originally appeared, in shorter form, on YFGF's Facebook page.


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