Happy Labor Day!

The U.S. beer industry provides jobs to nearly 2.23 million Americans, contributes over $350 billion to America’s economy, and pays $63.5 billion in annual taxes.

• Brewers and importers directly employ 64,745 Americans.
• Suppliers to the brewing industry employ more than 491,800 Americans.
• Beer wholesalers directly employ more than 134,240 Americans.
• Beer retailers employ 915,700 Americans.

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And 'craft' beer?

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Labor Day

Of the Super Bowl, Thanksgiving, 4th of July, Christmas, Memorial Day, and Labor Day ... more beer is sold in the United States for Labor Day libations (off-the-premises, more than sixty million cases) than for any other holiday.

Yeast never sleeps. Your local brewster is probably hard at work today, doing her part. Support the American worker. Do your part. Drink a beer (or two). Honor Labor Day.

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• However...

  Labor issues are the Achilles heel of the craft beer movement. We need to become an industry that provides our brewers with career-satisfying wages, or craft beer businesses won’t be sustainable.

  —Jeff Alworth, at Beervana.
• Statistics on beer's contribution to the American national economy, in 2016, via The Beer Institute.
• 'Craft' breweries' contribution to the American workforce in 2016, via the [U.S.] Brewers Association.
• Beer sales by holiday, in 2011, via Nielsen.
• "Who started Labor Day? The bloody and confusing history of an American holiday," via the Washington Post.


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