The biggest sporting event on American soil was supposed to be an economic rocket. Instead, the June 2026 jobs report landed with a thud: 57,000 nonfarm payrolls added nationally, well below analyst expectations, with the leisure and hospitality sector actually losing 61,000 positions during a month when millions of soccer fans descended on US cities.
Goldman Sachs had estimated the FIFA World Cup 2026 could generate roughly 40,000 temporary jobs across the tournament’s eleven US host cities, concentrated in hospitality and transportation. The actual numbers tell a very different story.
The gap between projection and reality
S&P Global had warned that the tournament’s effects would likely be negligible at the national level due to the sheer size of the US economy and what economists call substitution effects, where spending at World Cup venues simply replaces spending that would have happened elsewhere.
The New York/New Jersey region, which hosts several matches including the final at MetLife Stadium, was projected to see $3.3 billion in regional economic impact and support over 26,000 jobs. Those projections came from FIFA’s own estimates.
