This week, WineAmerica -- the industry trade group for American wineries released its first ever report showing the economic impact wine has the U.S. (linked from the headline and here).
Similarly, the Brewers Association for Small and Independent Craft Brewers, also released an economic impact report for their industry.
While pitting the two reports against each other wouldn’t be very fair -- as one accounts for an entire industry, and the other is only a slice, plus the data is from two different years -- I thought it was still worth noting the highlights in a single post to provide perspective on the gigantic size of these two industries.
When it comes to WINE:
The wine industry’s total economic impact to the U.S. for 2017 is $219.9 billion (California accounts for $71.2 billion. To see more state data see the chart on this Wines & Vines story, or you can individually look up each state’s details here. Pssst... journalists... this is an amazing resource to give context to your future stories).
There are 10,236 winery facilities in all 50 states.
There are 677,629 acres of vineyards across every U.S. state, except Alaska.
The wine industry supports 1,738,270 American jobs, with wages exceeding $75.7 billion.
A total of $36.5 billion in taxes is generated -- more than $19 billion for the federal government, and $17.5 billion to states and localities.
In the world of BEER:
The craft brewing industry contributed $67.8 billion to the U.S. economy in 2016 -- a 21.7 percent increase from 2014.
There are 5,301 breweries in the U.S.
The industry accounts for more than 456,373 full-time jobs (a 7.5 percent increase from 2014).
Just like wine, the state with the highest economic impact is California with $7.3 billion (see all the state data here and here).
Cheers!