IMPLAN Blog

Widespread winter drought across the United States has evolved from a climate concern into a significant input-cost risk for businesses, households, and local economies.

As of January 13, 2026, 42.55% of the Lower 48 states are classified as being in drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. When areas labeled “abnormally dry” are included, more than two-thirds of the country is experiencing some form of unusual winter dryness.

Winter is typically the period when snowpack and soil moisture replenish water storage systems that support spring and summer demand. When this replenishment does not occur, utilities encounter higher operating costs, water supplies become constrained, and water-intensive industries experience increased cost pressures that propagate through supply chains.

IMPLAN was used to model how sustained winter dryness could translate into economy-wide cost impacts through the water system.

For years, corporate Government Affairs teams have led policy conversations with a familiar set of numbers: how many people we employ, how much we’ve invested in facilities, how long we’ve operated in the state or district.

While those figures still matter, it’s becoming clearer and clearer that they rarely tell the whole story policymakers are seeking.

Today’s legislative environment is more crowded, more data-driven, and more skeptical than ever. Elected officials are assessing trade-offs across industries, regions, and constituencies. In that context, a single headcount number doesn’t fully explain a company’s role in the economy, or its relevance to the policy decision at hand.

That’s why many Government Affairs teams are shifting from “jobs-led” messaging to full economic contribution storytelling.

The expansion of the College Football Playoff (CFP) to a 12-team format represents a meaningful shift in where the economic benefits of college athletics are felt. For the first time, four first-round playoff games will be hosted on college campuses, bringing high-stakes postseason action directly into college towns that have historically been excluded from the financial upside of the bowl system.

Rather than concentrating spending in a small set of traditional bowl destinations, the new CFP model distributes visitor dollars across a broader range of regions. For host communities, this means a surge of out-of-town fans, sold-out hotels, packed restaurants, and increased retail and transportation spending, all tied to a single, nationally significant event.

The Trump Administration recently announced $12 billion in federal aid for U.S. farmers through the Farmer Bridge Assistance Program. These one-time bridge payments are designed to provide immediate financial support to producers facing ongoing market pressures, helping them sustain operations, pay their workforce, and stabilize local economic activity.

While these payments directly boost farmers’ bottom lines, their influence doesn’t end on the farm. Using IMPLAN, Education Services Economist Whitney McKinzie analyzed how these funds ripple through rural communities and the broader U.S. economy.

This year, new international student enrollment fell by more than 21,000 students, and the economic consequences are already evident.

New IMPLAN analysis reveals just how vital international students are to the economic health of communities across the United States. The economic footprint of these students extends far beyond tuition payments, driving billions in GDP, supporting tens of thousands of jobs, and sustaining key local industries.

We’re excited to share that our annual core data release is now live — and this year’s release brings meaningful improvements that help analysts better reflect real local economies, especially in fast-changing or highly specialized regions.

This year, our Data Team used robust data and powerful harmonization tools to deliver a high quality core dataset in record time, navigating changes in federal data availability with precision and ensuring your analyses stay on the cutting edge.

Here’s a quick look at what’s new and why it matters:

New IMPLAN analysis reveals the economic ripple effects of reduced soybean farming due to tariffs, and what a recovery could mean moving forward.

According to the Wall Street Journal, China purchased just over 200 million bushels of U.S. soybeans from January through August of this year. That’s an 80% drop from the nearly 1 billion bushels purchased during the same period last year. For an industry where China previously accounted for more than half of the $24.5 billion in U.S. soybean exports, the change represents an estimated $9.8 billion reduction in output.

But the economic impact doesn’t stop on the farm.

When it comes to artificial intelligence, the world’s largest technology companies are not holding back. Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft, and Meta are set to invest a staggering $364 billion in capital expenditures during their 2025 fiscal years, a dramatic leap from $325 billion in 2024. A recent analysis by IMPLAN’s Vice President of Customer Success, Candi Clouse, Ph.D., shows that this surge in spending will have profound ripple effects across the U.S. economy.

“These findings underscore that Big Tech’s AI investments are more than corporate balance sheet moves — they represent a nationwide economic force,” said Clouse. “When companies build out data centers and AI infrastructure, it sets off a chain reaction that touches everything from construction to manufacturing to local retail. The takeaway is that these investments are reshaping the U.S. economy in ways that matter for communities, workers, and policymakers alike.”

Taxes and tariffs have resurfaced in the last few months and are at the forefront of the nation’s attention. Rumors of trade wars and threats of economic sanctions fly around the globe faster than Garfield can devour a lasagna. Historically, governments have used taxes and tariffs to stimulate or throttle markets to achieve a desired economic state of balance.

The Bureau of Labor Statistic’s (BLS) Monthly Employment Situation Report, also known simply as the monthly jobs report, is one of the most highly-anticipated and closely-watched employment reports due to the timeliness of the data – released mere weeks after the survey data are collected. However, this timeliness entails a trade-off with accuracy, and that trade-off has been costlier in recent years, with both the monthly revisions (as more survey responses flow in) and the annual revisions (the result of benchmarking to other data sources) raising eyebrows lately.  

For example, the 2024 annual benchmark revision estimates from August 2024 implied a larger than typical downward revision of over 800,000 jobs In August 2025, the seasonally adjusted employment estimates for June 2025 were revised downward by 27,000, flipping the estimate of job creation from positive to negative. The most recent benchmark revision estimates from September 2025 implied another larger than typical downward revision of over 900,000 jobs (-0.6 percent).  

In this article, we break down how the estimates in the monthly jobs report are compiled, why the estimates undergo revisions, why those revisions have been so large recently, and whether the BLS data are trustworthy.