Recent Release | 20 Jul 2022

The State of the Creator Economy – Assessing the economic, societal, and cultural impact of YouTube in the US in 2021

Economic Consulting Team

Oxford Economics

This study presents an updated assessment of YouTube’s contribution to US GDP and employment, and its broader impact on society and culture.

YouTube enables American content creators to reach a large domestic and international audience. This supports substantial economic value for creators who receive income from the platform, for example as they are paid a share of the revenues from advertising placed alongside their videos. Creators may also earn revenues from other sources that are helped by their YouTube presence, including product sales, brand partnerships, or live performance engagements.

These revenue sources not only support jobs and income for the creators themselves, but also wider activity in their supply chains, and through workers’ spending. In total, our economic modelling suggests that YouTube’s creative ecosystem contributed more than $25 billion to the US economy in 2020 and supported more than 425,000 full-time equivalent jobs.

In this report we provide further details of our economic analysis, as well as the findings of wider survey research to investigate how YouTube can sustain careers for content creators; help businesses grow; enrich cultures and communities; build skills; and provide connections.

Alongside the findings from our economic modelling and surveys, the report presents a series of case studies to highlight the personal stories of successful US content creators.

About the team

Our economic consulting team are world leaders in quantitative economic analysis, working with clients around the globe and across sectors to build models, forecast markets and evaluate interventions using state-of-the art techniques. Lead consultants on this project included:

Hamilton Galloway

Head of Consultancy, Americas

+1 (646) 503 3068

Hamilton Galloway

Head of Consultancy, Americas

New York, United States

Hamilton Galloway joined Oxford Economics in 2014 as Head of US Consultancy – a team focused heavily on developing quality, customized research, analysis and impact modeling services for a range of private and public organizations. Prior to joining Oxford Economics, Mr. Galloway worked nearly seven years as an economist, senior consultant and manager at Economic Modeling Specialists Int (EMSI), a data and analytic company based in the US.

Mr. Galloway’s work included building a consultancy presence in the US, conducting bespoke economic and labour market research and engaging public and private sector clients. In 2013/14 he lived and worked in the UK as a senior consultant, focusing on developing data-driven, decision-making analytics and reports for use across public entities and education. He has authored numerous reports, publications, as well as economic development user guides and even a textbook chapter.

Andrew P Goodwin

Director of Applied Economics, Europe & Middle East

+44 (0) 203 910 8050

Andrew P Goodwin

Director of Applied Economics, Europe & Middle East

London, United Kingdom

Andrew is Director of Applied Economics, Europe & Middle East, and is based in our London office.

Since joining Oxford Economics in 2013 Andrew has led studies across a range of subject areas for public and private sector clients. These include projects for the Global Infrastructure Hub and PwC to forecast global infrastructure needs; economic impact studies in the aviation, maritime and defence sectors; work for cultural institutions such as the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and the British Library; analysing the impact of R&D support for clients including BEIS and the Centre for Process Innovation; and labour market studies for the UK Commission for Employment and Skills, the Department for Transport, and the Northern Ireland Department for Employment and Learning.

Before joining Oxford Economics, Andrew spent six years working as a Government economist at the Home Office and Department for Transport. Prior to that Andrew worked at DTZ Research and Consulting, where his responsibilities included analysing local economies and economic forecasting. Andrew holds an MSc in European Economic Integration from the University of Kent, where his dissertation analysed drivers of growth for European cities, and a BA in Economics with European Study from the University of Exeter.

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