CHASING WORKERS

The annual State of Working Maine report, produced by Christopher St. John of the Maine Center for Economic Policy, neatly summarizes this year the conflicting evidence of an economy in an unusual transition. The many encouraging numbers described in the report are balanced by a less quantitative sense that parts of Maine will soon face a rough stretch.

The good news comes most obviously from wage growth in both the middle and bottom of the salary range brought on in part by low unemployment. The gains caused Mr. St. John to conclude that, “The last few years have been a period of extraordinary gains for many Maine people.” This is demonstrated, if nowhere else, by the income-tax line for state revenues, which until recently handed lawmakers more money than they knew what to do with.

The budget gaps in the current and projected into the next biennium’s budget are not necessarily reason to think that Maine’s economy relative to those in other states will fall – 44 states this year overestimated revenues by 10 percent or more, so all of them may be sinking a bit together.

A more worrisome and lasting demographic for Maine, observed by Mr. St. John and several others, is the continuing population shift that is making it harder and harder for communities to sustain any sort of economy.

In that way, the report would further serve if it looked within the state at counties and towns. It would not see only a lower unemployment rate, but look at the absolute loss of workers in many places, slow growth (well behind the national average) in most others and vigorous growth in a few concentrated areas. Piscataquis County, for instance, had 600 fewer people in its workforce last year compared with a decade ago; Aroostook had 4,000 fewer; Washington had 200 fewer; and Somerset had about the same number. Penobscot County’s work force grew by about 4,000, which works out to a little better than one-half percent a year. York County’s work force, by contrast, grew about twice as fast.

This path of this trend, more than income levels or unemployment rates, will determine whether many communities live or die. The extended decline in the number of schoolchildren in many of these same places further suggests that simply holding onto the families currently living there is not good enough. If Maine values its rural communities the way politicians claim to, it will make this issue as large and important as the debates on taxes or health care. Either that or the State of Working Maine for much of the state a few years from now will be quiet, very quiet indeed.