Thank Taylor Swift this year for bringing jobs and joy, WSJ columnist says: 'Person of the Year'
'Everyone says she’s huge, she’s fabulous, but really it’s bigger than that' Peggy Noonan wrote of Swift
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan made the case for Americans to be thankful for one person in particular this year: Taylor Swift.
"She brings joy, jobs and happy feet everywhere she goes," Noonan wrote in an op-ed headlined "We Should All Give Thanks for Taylor Swift."
"She’s the best thing happening in America," Noonan wrote.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan made the case for Americans to be thankful for one person in particular this year: Taylor Swift.
"Everyone says she’s huge, she’s fabulous, but really it’s bigger than that," Noonan, a former speechwriter for President Reagan, wrote. "What she did this year is some kind of epic American story."
"Miss Taylor Swift is the Person of the Year," she added, in reference to TIME's yearly tradition.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"She is the best thing that has happened in America in all of 2023," she continued. "This fact makes her a suitably international choice because when something good happens in America, boy is it worldwide news."
Noonan argued that Swift record-breaking concert tours across the country have not only solidified her reputation as an American pop icon, she is also a boon to the economy.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Before taking her show "Eras" worldwide, Swift famously gave her entire staff millions of dollars in bonuses, Fox News Digital has confirmed. (Buda Mendes)
"She has transformed the economy of every city she visits. The U.S. Travel Association reported this fall that what her concertgoers spend in and around each venue ‘is on par with the Super Bowl, but this time it happened on 53 different nights in 20 different locations over the course of five months.’ Downtowns across the country—uniquely battered by the pandemic and the riots and demonstrations of 2020—are, while she is there, brought to life, with an influx of visitors and a local small business boom."
"Wherever she went it was like the past three years didn’t happen," Noonan wrote.
Before taking her show "Eras" worldwide, Swift famously gave her entire staff millions of dollars in bonuses, Fox News Digital confirmed.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Noonan continued to rattle off Swift's remarkable effect on economies around the country. "When Ms. Swift played Los Angeles for six sold-out nights in August she brought a reported $320 million local windfall with her, including 3,300 jobs and a $160 million increase in local earnings," she wrote. "From Straits Research this month: Ms. Swift’s tour is ‘an economic phenomenon that is totally altering the rules of entertainment economics.’"
It is an achievement that puts her in her "own category," Noonan wrote because she doesn't just pump up the economy — she "bring joy."
Fox News' Caroline Thayer contributed to this report.
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