In 2023, the entire coal mining industry employed 45,476 people in the United States. Microsoft alone has 120,000 employees in the United States. It’s crazy that coal gets so much attention from politicians when it probably has less economic impact than Taylor Swift or Beyoncé deciding whether to go on tour.
this post was submitted on 12 Mar 2025
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How many people it employs is one way to measure an industry.
Out of curiousity, I checked another.
Coal is worth $48 billion a year vs the entire Music industry at $11 billion. But the industry number alone doesnt really capture economic impact.
One estimate of Taylor Swift's economic impact of her 2023 tour is estimated at a total of $320 million, including 3300 jobs total, $20M per city in tax revenue.
Of course it matters quite a lot where that industry is. And so for whom is it profitable?
I was mostly joking about Taylor Swift or Beyoncé tours being more important to the economy than entire sectors.
It’s probably impossible to calculate this without making major assumptions but it’d be interesting to compare the economic impact after factoring in negative externalities like pollution, CO~2~ emissions, health problems, premature deaths, etc. I’m sure a few horny old men died when Beyoncé came out as a surprise guest during Coldplay’s Super Bowl halftime show. And Taylor Swift’s private jet emits a ton of CO~2~. But the full lifecycle of coal and coal-fired power plants might ultimately have negative economic value for a region. London in the 50’s had smog so bad from burning coal, they have a whole term (pea soupers) for days when you couldn’t see.
Amazing that each of those 45 thousand people earn over a million dollars each year.
But coal states make up a nice chunk of the senate. In these super slim majorities it matters.
the problem is that some of them live in ohio which was a swing state for a long while.
Got to wondering after reading this how much coal mining costs in the US (equipment, leases, employees). Expenses, not profits.
How much solar and wind installation could that money buy every year?