Yeah realized that was a pretty bad source. I know I had one I liked somewhere I’m trying to find. I think the 30% number might have been from Graeber’s bullshit jobs.
Definitely remember reading a number and being shocked at how high it was though
You're both right, but were thinking in different terms:
As of 2025, advertising is responsible for approximately 21.9% of the total U.S. economic output, according to a study by S&P Global Market Intelligence commissioned by The Advertising Coalition. [prnewswire.com]
Jobs supported by advertising: 29 million (about 18.3% of the U.S. workforce)
So while direct advertising expenditures account for about 1–2% of GDP, the broader economic impact—including downstream sales and employee spending—brings the total contribution to nearly 22% of GDP.
That’s not advertising, that's almost entirely sales “stimulated by” advertising, which are, even in theory, sales the particular seller would not have made without advertising, but not, even in principal, necessarily additional economic activity from advertising.
So even in expanding “advertising” to “due to advertising”, its at best a vast overestimate (and the “jobs supported by advertising” statistic is downstream of that statistic and suffers the same problem when treated as if it were additional rather than largely reallocation.)
It peaked at under 2.5% of GDP in the late 1990s, and is significantly less now.
https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2024/oct/rise-digi...