Commentary
poultry perspectives
The economic impact of the
poultry industry
By Gwen Venable
Vice President of Communications; gvenable@uspoultry.org
monticelllo/iStock / Getty Images Plus/viaGettyImages
Since 2012, USPOULTRY has worked with a group called John Dunham & Associates to conduct an economic impact study on the poultry industry. The study is conducted every other year; when USPOULTRY conducted the first survey in 2012, the poultry industry provided 1.3 million jobs, $63 billion in wages, $23.4 billion in government revenue, and $265.6 billion in economic impact to the U.S. economy.
Since then, we have seen the industry grow, as apparent from the recent 2020 study that shows the poultry industry providing 2.1 million jobs, $121.1 billion in wages, $41.9 billion in government revenue, and $576.6 billion in economic activity.
The economic impact information from the study can be viewed in many ways: by county, state Senate district, state House district, Congressional district, by the entire state or by the industry as a whole. We have broken the study into four areas - the entire poultry industry and then chicken, turkey and eggs separately. This information is available for viewing on the following websites:
The information is a snapshot in time of how the poultry industry is impacting our economy, and the data is historical data. For the 2020 study, we contacted the state poultry associations and our sister national organizations for their initial feedback in May and then followed up with them in September with the first set of data for review. Dunham & Associates then ran the models, allowing for some corrections and adjustments, and the information was ready for dissemination at the end of November.
From an industry standpoint, we can always do a better job of communicating the positive aspects of the industry, and the poultry economic impact study helps us do this. We feel the information is important because it allows local, state and governmental officials to understand the role that the poultry industry plays in the U.S. economy. When you think about what the poultry industry contributes at any of these levels, it is rather eye-opening from an economic standpoint. Then, when you also think about what the poultry industry donates each year in terms of food, money and other initiatives, as well as the employee volunteer efforts that are not always recognized, it really adds up!
The poultry economic impact model was developed by Dunham & Associates based on data provided by Infogroup, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, several national and state poultry trade associations and groups, and various state agriculture departments. The analysis utilizes the Minnesota IMPLAN Group to quantify the economic impact of the poultry industry on the economy of the United States, and the model adopts an accounting framework through which the relationships between different inputs and outputs across industries and sectors are computed. More information about the methodology for the report can be found on any of the poultry economic impact websites.
