The 2028 Summer Olympic Games in Los Angeles will deliver a bounty to Southern California in more ways than one, generating a surge of up to $40.6 billion in increased economic output and adding as many as 224,000 jobs, according to an economic analysis released Tuesday.
Those projections were at the high end of the economic forecast conducted by the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp. at the request of LA28, the Olympics organizing committee. One scenario put the increased economic output at $20.5 billion to $25.4 billion, while the other predicted increased output at roughly $35.4 billion to $40.6 billion.
Those estimates include the run-up to the Games over the next two years. The report doesn’t attempt to measure what sort of economic impact would follow in the months and years after the Olympics conclude.
“This study shows the tremendous opportunity we have to support jobs, open doors for local businesses, and drive investments that strengthen communities across Los Angeles,” Reynold Hoover, chief executive of LA28, said in a statement.
The authors of the study acknowledged that projections of future economic activity can be overly rosy “particularly when they rely on optimistic assumptions about attendance or visitor spending.” That’s what happened in the case of the 2024 Paris Olympics, French government auditors found.
An economic forecast by a think tank before the 2024 Games projected the Paris Olympics would generate up to $12.8 billion in net economic benefits. But government auditors concluded in 2025 that the Olympics injected a more modest $2.3 billion into the economy, an almost negligible 0.07 percentage point increase in the nation’s gross domestic product.
The French auditors concluded that the Games failed to provide a bigger boost, in part, because the number of fans coming to the event was offset by a substantial number of regular tourists who took a pass on Paris that summer to avoid Olympian crowds. Still, the organizers of the Paris Games, which were funded mainly through private resources, reported a profit of about $87.5 million.
And the post-event calculation from Paris had a narrower focus than the pre-2028 Games projections released at a news conference Tuesday at a bakery in historic South-Central L.A. The French government auditors examined just one year, 2024, and focused on the region around Paris, rather than the broader territory that the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp. economists analyzed.
Organizers said the 2028 Games in L.A. promise to provide a much bigger stimulus, with lower economic risk, because most of the facilities needed to host the event are already in place. They also have reported that ticket sales and sponsorship revenue have exceeded projections.
The Economic Development Corp. study said that most of the expected job gains — 79% — will come in positions that don’t require a college education, including shuttle drivers, carpenters, bus drivers, security guards and construction laborers.
The report found government treasuries can also expect a windfall when the Olympics arrive in L.A. for the third time. (The city previously hosted the Games in 1932 and 1984.) It projected that the 2028 Summer Games will spin off as much as $5.9 billion in taxes, with 62% going to the federal government.
The forecast projected the economic impact for the entire region — Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, and Ventura counties.
The Economic Development Corp. report breaks the burst of Olympics-related spending into three main categories — capital projects, direct spending by LA28, and spending by the estimated 2 million out-of-town visitors expected for the Olympics and Paralympics.
Spending on improvements at Los Angeles International Airport and other transportation systems will total about $8.35 billion, the report says. Another $6.5 billion will be spent by the nonprofit LA28. Tourists will spend somewhere between $1.6 billion and $4.3 billion, mostly on lodging and food, the report projects.
Los Angeles city officials and some community and union activists have expressed concern about whether the sports extravaganza will help working-class people and small businesses. Last week, an association of Southern California contractors objected to a plan for a “summer-long” shutdown of major highway construction around the time of the 2028 Olympics, saying it could cost workers their jobs.
And Los Angeles City Council members, led by Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson, have pressed LA28 to agree that a certain percentage of the contracts the organization will let prior to the Olympics go to businesses based in Los Angeles. Harris-Dawson wants as much as 40% of that work to go to L.A.-based firms, since the city has committed to cover the costs should debts from the Olympics exceed revenue.
LA28 leaders have countered that they are on track to host a moneymaker and that — to do that and assure the city is not on the hook for losses — they must be free to contract with whatever firms they want. Forcing a certain amount of work to L.A.-based companies could drive up costs substantially, they say.
The report released Tuesday finds that a “substantial portion” of the economic activity will help small businesses. It also says that the city of L.A. will get the biggest infusion of tourist dollars — between $1.2 billion and $3.3 billion in extra hotel, restaurant, shopping and other expenditures.
That could generate as much as $2.5 billion in new labor income for the city of L.A., the report says. It also projects $386 million in added tax revenue for the city of Los Angeles and an added $723 million for Los Angeles County.
The report’s authors also delivered a series of glowing nonmonetary benefits they said the Olympics would bring, including “community cohesion [and] health benefits” as well as skill formation and civic pride.
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