‘They Got a $50,000 Check’: Meta’s Data Center Pays Teachers More Than the Parish’s Old Average Wage

Published: September 19, 2026 by Joel South

Quick Read

One construction site turned a small Louisiana parish's school salaries upside down, and the mechanism that made it possible is something most towns never think to set up.
Meta is spending at a scale that's collapsing its own free cash flow, and Zuckerberg's justification for it is more aggressive than Wall Street expected.
Data centers became politically toxic almost overnight. Meta's unusual counter-strategy involves a Louisiana school superintendent on a tech podcast.
Just released. Our analysts combed the entire stock market and named the ten best stocks to buy right now. The report is free. Enter your email and see if any of your stocks made the cut.

The Richland Parish, Louisiana school superintendent went on the All-In podcast this week with a number that stopped the hosts cold. Certified school employees, he said, just received a $50,000 sales-tax check in June 2026, up from $10,000 the previous year. That single check alone exceeds the roughly $36,000 to $38,000 average annual wage in Richland Parish before Meta arrived.

The windfall is the downstream effect of one construction site. Meta (NASDAQ:META | META Price Prediction) broke ground on its Richland Parish campus in December 2024, and as workers poured in, sales-tax collections peaked at about a 260% increase versus the parish’s typical 5% to 10% annual growth. A dedicated 1-cent and half-cent sales tax funnels those receipts straight into school employee salaries.

Capex at a Scale Small Towns Have Never Seen

Meta’s Louisiana project is one node in a spending program that has no precedent in the company’s history. CFO Susan Li told analysts on the July 29, 2026 call that Q2 capital expenditures hit $31.1 billion and reiterated a 2026 capex outlook of $130 to $145 billion. Full-year 2025 capex was $69.69 billion. Free cash flow in Q2 collapsed to $784 million from $8.55 billion a year earlier, down 91.31%.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg framed the intensity bluntly: “The high-level observation is that there’s just nowhere near enough compute for all the demand.” He added that Meta is “investing aggressively because the potential is huge.”

Where Meta Sits Versus Microsoft and Alphabet

The hyperscaler race puts Meta alongside Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) and Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL), the two other Western hyperscalers pouring tens of billions into AI campuses. Meta’s edge, and its exposure, is that it has no cloud rental business to defray the cost. Zuckerberg is now testing that model, announcing a strategic venture with BlackRock to develop a one-gigawatt data center in El Paso, Texas, and telling analysts Meta is “getting a lot of offers for compute at a significant premium over what we paid for it.”

Political Toxicity Meets a $50,000 Check

The Richland story matters because the asset class is under siege. Jim Cramer called data centers “politically toxic going into election” on September 14, 2026, and President Trump labeled the backlash a “sick conspiracy” China roots for. On the same All-In episode, Meta’s Dina Powell McCormick argued adversaries may be behind the misinformation campaign against U.S. data centers, citing intelligence committee discussions, while outlining Meta’s community compact on teacher bonuses, water efficiency and electricity costs.

Investors are not yet rewarding the buildout. Meta shares trade at $677.36, down 12.77% over the past year, with a market cap around $1.48 trillion and a P/E near 25. Keep an eye on the stock as Meta leans on parishes like Richland to make its political case.