While Maine’s prosperous southern coast boomed in the past decade, households in the rural north and east watched their incomes sputter and their populations dwindle.

“The gap is widening,” said Galen Rose, an economic analyst with the State Planning Office, of newly released income figures from the U.S. Census Bureau. “It suggests the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer, at least in terms of regions.”

Indeed, the latest 2000 Census data show a deeper divide between the state’s rich and poor regions, with households in the four wealthiest counties (Cumberland, York, Sagadahoc and Lincoln) earning an average of 48 percent more – up from 43 percent in 1989 – than their counterparts in the four poorest counties (Washington, Aroostook, Piscataquis and Somerset), after income figures were adjusted for inflation.

In Maine’s wealthiest county, Cumberland County, the median household earned $44,048, up 5 percent from 1989. In Washington County, the state’s poorest households earned just $25,869, down 1 percent after adjustment for inflation.

That means in Cape Elizabeth, the state’s wealthiest town among communities of 1,000 population or greater, people in the median household had an extra $10,203 in their pockets after inflation. In Machias, the median household had $1,000 less after inflation.

The state as a whole saw its household median income rise 2 percent, after inflation, to $37,240 – the lowest in New England.

State policy-makers have tried to bridge the economic gap since the late 1960s, when modernization of the state’s forestry and farming industries lessened the need for highly paid workers, according to Rose.

“This is a problem that every governor for decades has fought against,” Rose said of the steady shift of wealth from north to south. “But nobody knows what the solutions are, if there are any.”

The decline of the state’s natural resource-based industries has perhaps hit hardest in northern Penobscot County, where John DiCentes has watched his native Millinocket lose 31 percent of its population in the past two decades.

Last week, two more homes on his street went up for sale.

“They’re still leaving,” said DiCentes, a 63-year-old retiree from the Great Northern Paper mill, which has reduced its work force from a high of 4,400 in the late 1970s to about 1,300 at its Millinocket and East Millinocket mills.

With the decline in population has come a corresponding drop in household income, with Millinocket posting a 31 percent free fall, after inflation, to $29,318. In real dollars, Millinocket household annual income dropped by more than $3,000 in the last decade.

A household, as defined by the U.S. Census Bureau, includes everyone who occupies a housing unit such as an apartment or a house, whether or not they are related.

DiCentes, who now lives on his $1,200 a month in Social Security benefits as well as the interest off the lump sum he received in a 1994 buyout, doesn’t need the hefty weekly paychecks he once drew at the mill.

That 1994 buyout, as well as similar downsizings in subsequent years, has created a large retirement community in the area, where DiCentes estimates that half of the population is now living on less.

While Great Northern Paper still offers high wages, it’s virtually the only game in town, with the restaurants and stores that once served the large work force closing as displaced millworkers leave for jobs in the south.

Bangor suburbs boom

Although the 2000 Census numbers don’t take into account the subsequent recession, state officials say there are nevertheless some clear upward trends.

While the economy of northern Penobscot County struggled, households in some Bangor suburbs saw their incomes skyrocket in the past decade.

Hampden’s median income rose 26 percent, after inflation, to $53,377 – the highest in the county and within one spot of cracking the state’s top 10 wealthiest communities.

“It floors me sometimes when I see what we’ve been getting … and not in a bad way,” Hampden Town Manager Susan Lessard said of the six-figure homes sprouting up in subdivisions throughout the town. “But it’s not serendipity.”

Lessard credited the town’s good fortune, in part, to reputable schools, good roads and the town’s easy access to the Bangor market.

That all sounded good to Gerry and Rhonda Chasse, who moved to Hampden in September from the rural town of Dixmont about 10 miles to the west.

“I was looking for a neighborhood with other children,” said Rhonda Chasse, 34, while she fixed breakfast for the couple’s twin boys Tuesday morning in their colonial, valued by the town at $256,000, in the upscale Silver Mine Ridge subdivision.

Her husband, an engineer with Bangor Hydro-Electric Co., also cut time off his commute in the move to Hampden, where the population jumped about 6 percent in the past decade, and town officials expect to add $14 million in value to the tax base this year alone.

Other Bangor suburbs, including Holden, Veazie and Hermon, experienced similar income increases in the 1990s, according to the Census figures.

The exodus to nearby towns is not limited to Bangor, which, like its urban counterparts, Lewiston and Portland, has seen its population decline while its suburbs swell.

With that population shift has come an income shift, Census figures suggest. The median household income in Bangor dropped 8 percent, after inflation, to $29,740, while incomes in its suburbs increased an average of 13 percent.

As a whole, the median income in Penobscot County, adjusted for inflation, dropped only slightly in the past decade.

Midcoast miracle

Brooks, population 1,022, is still a one-stoplight town.

But the rural Waldo County community holds the distinction of being the fastest-growing in terms of household median income, up 37 percent, after inflation, to $30,104, according to the 2000 Census figures.

Still a relatively poor area, coming in well below the state average, Brooks still has its share of poverty, with nearly 20 percent of its households earning less than $10,000 a year.

But Brooks has also reaped the benefits of its proximity to Belfast, which has experienced its own resurgence in the past decade, both in terms of population and buying power. A 25 percent jump in Belfast’s inflation-adjusted household income in the past decade has moved the town from one of the state’s 20 poorest to squarely in the middle of the pack.

State and local officials give at least some of the credit to credit card giant MBNA America, a Maryland-based company that since 1993 has offered well-paying jobs in service centers all along the midcoast, employing 2,224 people in Knox and Waldo counties.

Roxanne Hall operates a day care center – one of three in Brooks that have popped up in the last few years, in part to handle the business of “MBNA moms” who live in the town, she said.

Her husband, Stephen Hall, a town selectman, remembers when things were a little quieter in Brooks.

“When I was a kid you could back into traffic without looking and not get hit,” said Hall, a 54-year-old teacher. “Now you have to look.”

Waldo County and neighboring Knox County made giant strides in terms of household income levels in the past decade, jumping two and three places respectively on the statewide list since the 1990 Census.

The two counties featured six of the seven fastest upward-moving communities in terms of household income.

The seventh came from Hancock County, which like its midcoast counterparts, has seen substantial growth in the past decade, with household incomes easily outpacing inflation, jumping about 8 percent.

In Hancock County, which has become a popular destination for well-to-do retirees, Sedgwick saw a 34 percent increase in its household median income, adjusted for inflation, to $35,000.

Move eastward from Hancock County, however, and things aren’t so rosy.

O Canada, where art thou?

Just outside of the Washington County city of Calais, business owner Bill Francis has seen better days.

With Canadian shoppers staying home because of a strong U.S. dollar and a nearly decade-old border crackdown on goods bought in America and taken into Canada, Francis has watched his income – and his payroll – shrink.

“Canadians, like everybody else, don’t want to pay high taxes,” said Francis of the 17 percent Canadian levy placed on U.S. goods brought back over the border. “It’s been very, very tough.”

In 1990, his craft supply store, Knock on Wood, on Route 1 in Baring did about $1 million in sales, about 40 percent of which came from Canada.

In 2000, the store did about $800,000 in business, a 39 percent decline when adjusted for inflation, said Francis, who cut his staff in half and abandoned his Canadian advertising campaign during the past decade.

Figures from the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service clearly demonstrate the trend. According to those statistics, in 1993 there were 16 million non-U.S. entrants at Canadian border crossings. In 2001, that number was just 6 million.

Crossings at the Calais border have declined 35 percent since 1992, according to figures provided by the Calais Chamber of Commerce.

In Calais, once a U.S. retail hub for much of the Canadian Maritimes, the household median income dropped 25 percent, adjusted for inflation, to $24,623 in the 1990s.

Like Francis, David Cole, executive director of the Eastern Maine Development Corp., said easing trade restrictions between the two countries could pay huge dividends for those border communities, returning them to the relatively prosperous era of the early 1990s.

“A lot of it comes down to redefining the way we look at ourselves,” Cole said Tuesday. “Erasing that border would be a major step.”

The border towns in Aroostook County are seeing a similar phenomenon, Census figures suggest, with towns including Van Buren and Houlton in the poorest 20 communities.

That’s not a big change from the 1990 Census, with those towns generally having a lower cost of living than the wealthier southern communities.

Rose said, for many in those less affluent towns, money simply isn’t everything.

“At some point you have to decide if the lower income is worthwhile to you,” Rose said. “Lower crime rates, less traffic, less pollution is often worth the smaller paycheck.”

Michael Moore, the NEWS computer-assisted reporting specialist, developed the numbers for this story. Analysis was limited to communities of 1,000 or more population.

BANGOR DAILY NEWS PHOTO BY STEPHEN M. KATZ

The streets of downtown Calais slowly wake up early Tuesday morning. Census figures released this week indicate household median incomes have dropped 25 percent.