The Data-Center Dividend for Workers
Jobs and wages are booming in the communities that welcome AI.
President Trump recently drew condemnation for suggesting that communities that block data centers will end up “backwards and poor.” While the remark was hyperbolic, his underlying premise is sound: areas embracing data centers are reaping the rewards of booming jobs and accelerating wage growth.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics recently published industry-level data on state and county employment and wages through March of this year. A comparison of Loudoun County, Virginia—aptly nicknamed “Data Center Alley”—with other Washington, D.C., suburbs since early 2020 reveals striking disparities.
Loudoun has long been a hub for data-center development, thanks to permissive zoning, relatively low-cost energy, and geographical proximity to major telecom network exchanges. As an exurban county, it also has more available land for growth than older, denser suburbs closer to the capital. But crucially, Loudoun has actively embraced that growth. Amid the AI boom, permitted data-center space in the county increased by roughly 150% between 2020 and 2025. Jobs quickly followed.
While most counties surrounding the capital have experienced stagnant or negative job growth since the pandemic, Loudoun is a glaring exception, with employment surging 17.4%. By contrast, job growth in Virginia’s Fairfax and Arlington counties, and Maryland’s Prince George’s and Montgomery counties, hovered at 1% or less—or actually shrank.
The construction sector tells a similar story. Construction jobs in Loudoun increased by 63%, vastly outpacing Fairfax (6.3%), Arlington (8.2%), and Prince George’s (8.3%), while Montgomery actually saw a 12.8% decline. Furthermore, this data-center construction boom is generating powerful positive spillover effects across other local industries.
Employment in leisure and hospitality grew 6.8% in Loudoun, even as it declined in neighboring suburbs. More impressively, average weekly wage growth for Loudoun’s hospitality workers over this period was 69%—more than double the growth seen in Fairfax, Arlington, Montgomery, and Prince George’s.
Building and operating data centers clearly increases demand for blue-collar workers, bidding up wages. In turn, Loudoun’s rapidly expanding workforce is injecting more money into the local economy. If more construction workers are grabbing drinks and eating out after their shifts, local bartenders and servers make more money.
Loudoun’s prosperity, however, is not an isolated suburban phenomenon. Meta’s massive data-center project in Richland Parish, Louisiana, is helping to revive a struggling, rural farming community. Since the first quarter of last year, private employment in Richland has grown 41%, and average weekly wages have surged 61%, while neighboring parishes have seen little to no growth.
In a single year, Richland’s construction workforce has expanded more than tenfold, with average weekly wages jumping 182%—an annual pay increase of $86,000 for construction workers. Meanwhile, employment in the local leisure and hospitality sector has grown 21.5%, with industry wages soaring 34%.
While building data centers may not provide lifetime employment, a massive workforce will be required to run and maintain the facilities, as well as the power plants that supply them. Politicians in both parties frequently fret that AI will concentrate wealth and leave rural communities behind. The folks in Richland who are currently prospering likely see it differently.
Data centers have the power to spread prosperity organically, without the need for heavy-handed government intervention or wealth redistribution. Perhaps that is the real reason America’s political class is turning against them.