ATLANTA — The economic boom continued in Georgia last year, with a second record-topping year of business investment and job growth.
Gov. Brian Kemp and the state Department of Economic Development announced $35.2 billion in project investments for the fiscal year that ended June 30. That is up from $26.3 billion the prior fiscal year, which had also broken records.
The figures are for companies newly locating in Georgia and for expansions by existing companies. Expansions accounted for 79% of projects and for 15,370 of the estimated 25,300 new private-sector jobs, the joint statement Thursday said.
Sometimes familiarity breeds contempt, but that adage does not seem to apply to Georgia and business.
“The greatest vote of confidence is a company choosing to expand their existing operations in our state,” Kemp said.
Three out of four of the new projects and expansions were outside the 10-county metro Atlanta region, spreading economic opportunity to rural Georgia.
A chunk of that investment came from overseas. Foreign companies invested $7.8 billion and creating 9,350 jobs, according to the state. The top investors were South Korea, Italy, Belgium, Canada, and France.
Last month, German industrial giant Siemens announced plans to develop a 550,000-square-foot manufacturing plant near Pendergrass. The $185 million investment was expected to produce 1,400 jobs.
Kemp said the investments last year showed how his administration was delivering on its promise “to bring good-paying jobs to hardworking Georgians in every zip code.”
Kemp often refers to that magazine’s ranking when touting his administration’s record. On Thursday, he said that with the latest economic development figures, “we’re proving why we remain the No. 1 state for business.”
Rick Jackson, the Republican nominee for Georgia governor, has portrayed his priorities as a continuation of Kemp’s policies.
Jackson has said he would cut taxes while continuing to recruit companies to the state.
“I’m going to try to beat his record on putting together the most jobs, what he’s done in the rural areas,” Jackson said in August, when Kemp appeared alongside him at a Georgia Chamber of Commerce event in Athens.
Kemp said Georgia had “the most people working ever in the history of the state,” and he said he believed Jackson could “keep this going, and that’s why I’m supporting him.”
Jackson’s Democratic opponent, former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, has targeted the cost of living as a top campaign issue, saying she has a plan to help Georgians afford their grocery bills.
During a campaign stop at a Gwinnett County grocery store Wednesday, Bottoms unveiled her plan to encourage cities and counties to waive sales taxes on groceries.
The Democratic state senator for the area opened the event by saying that Kemp — and by extension Jackson — had their priorities backward.
“Things are tough for everyone,” Sen. Sheikh Rahman, D-Lawrenceville, said, asserting that Bottoms, not Jackson, would be best at attacking high costs.
She will do “everything to make sure the state of Georgia is not the No. 1 state for business,” he said, “but the No. 1 state for family.”
ATLANTA — With voters upset about the cost of living, both candidates for governor are rolling out affordability plans to woo them.
After Republican Rick Jackson pitched cuts to income and energy taxes last month, Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms unveiled her proposal Wednesday to lower grocery bills by cutting the sales tax.
The state already exempts groceries from its 4% sales tax. Her new plan would give cities and counties the option of waiving theirs, too.
The former Atlanta mayor said that if voters make her the first Democratic governor of Georgia in more than two decades — and the first Black woman ever — she will ask lawmakers to let cities and counties opt out, too.
Speaking at a campaign stop in a small grocery store in Lawrenceville, Bottoms framed rising costs as an existential crisis.
Whether she goes to the hair or nail salon, the grocery store or church, Bottoms said, “people are talking about how expensive it is just to exist.”
Democratic gubernatorial nominee Keisha Lance Bottoms discussed rising prices and her plan to reduce costs by cutting local grocery sales taxes at a press conference at Al Huda Grocery in Lawrenceville, Georgia, on Wednesday, Sept. 2, 2026. (Caroline Newbern/Capitol Beat)
President Donald Trump has endorsed Jackson, and Jackson has said he would be Trump’s favorite governor.
The Bottoms campaign hopes that alliance hurts Jackson more than it helps him.
“Donald Trump ran on lowering grocery costs, specifically the cost of eggs, immediately when he came into office,” Bottoms said. “Well, we are still waiting on him to deliver on that.”
Bottoms’ affordability plan offers local leaders two options: permanently eliminate their sales taxes on groceries and other eligible essentials, or temporarily suspend those taxes when prices rise sharply.
She would establish a one-year $250 million state fund to subsidize communities for revenue losses in excess of 5% of the prior-year grocery-tax collections.
Bottoms could not do this alone as governor. Her plan is predicated on a major assumption: that Democrats will win control of both the state House and Senate, long controlled by Republicans.
She would need the cooperation of the General Assembly to get enabling legislation approved.
Bottoms said she hopes Democrats seize control of the Legislature but said she was prepared to collaborate with Republicans if they remained in power.
The Jackson campaign dismissed Bottoms’ plan, asserting that Atlanta became unaffordable when she was mayor from 2018 through 2021.
“Rick Jackson has treated it as a crisis since day one, and his plan doesn’t need permission from 159 county commissions,” Jackson campaign spokesman Garrison Douglas said in an email.
Speaking at an Atlanta barbershop in mid-August, Jackson said he would address the cost of living by attacking other types of taxes.
He said he would gradually cut the state income tax in half, eliminate state taxes on the electricity and natural gas delivered to residences and suspend the motor fuels tax during gasoline price spikes.
Jackson also pledged to freeze the rising home valuations that are driving up property tax bills.
The Bottoms campaign has labeled her opponent “Slick Rick,” an insult she used at her Al Huda Grocery stop Wednesday.
When a reporter asked her why Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, the Republican who lost to Jackson in the GOP primary runoff, had not endorsed Jackson, Bottoms said she thought it was because Jones did not trust Jackson, in part due to the money Jackson’s healthcare staffing company has earned from the state.
“Slick Rick received a $700 million no-bid contract in the middle of COVID, and he stood before cameras like this and said if he were elected, he wouldn’t continue to do business with the state of Georgia,” Bottoms said. “And then he just extended that contract three weeks ago.”
Jackson addressed the issue last month.
During his campaign stop at Tommy’s Barbershop, Jackson said any contracts his company held with the state could and would be canceled if he were elected governor.
