POPULATION CHALLENGES

Maine’s high tax burden relative to its low wages and high transportation and heating costs are frequently blamed for the state’s lack of economic prosperity. But another factor in Maine’s economic fate, the growth of its residential population, is often overlooked or at least underemphasized. With the most recent annual population growth, from July 2006 to July 2007, estimated at less than 3,000, there is reason to be concerned.

The decade-by-decade census figures tell the story: From 1960 to 1970, Maine’s population grew 2.52 percent. Between 1970 and 1980, it grew 13.18 percent, a peak. From 1980 to 1990, it grew by a healthy 9.18 percent, but in the 1990s, it grew by just 3.83 percent. The State Planning Office, according to an article in the March issue of the Maine Municipal Association’s Maine Townsman, projects a 6.7 percent growth through 2010, an encouraging upward trend.

Beyond the raw numbers, economists focus on population breakdowns among age groups to better understand how it affects the economy. If there are too many children who need educational services or too many elderly people who draw health care services being supported by too few people in the peak working years of 30 to 50, an economy’s growth may be hampered.

Maine’s population is aging, with a median age of 40 (the national average is 37), which means large segments are beyond the age at which they start businesses, invest in new equipment, train in new technologies or build or buy new houses. A silver lining to that dark cloud may be that many of Maine’s in-migrants are relatively young and affluent retirees who are building or renovating houses and buying goods and services in communities.

The Maine Townsman also examined another wrinkle of the population challenge, the struggle of service center communities to reverse population loss. Augusta, for example, lost nearly 3,000 residents during the 1990s, dipping to 18,560 at the 2000 census. Houlton and Madawaska’s efforts in this struggle are also featured in the article. One key to maintaining residential population, the article suggests, is building a range of housing that is affordable for working people at various stages of life.

But the bottom line is people; either births must exceed the rate of deaths or the numbers of people leaving the state, or Maine must open its arms to immigrants.

“The Northeast, especially New England, is certainly growing more slowly than the U.S. as a whole,” Kenneth M. Johnson, a senior demographer at the Carsey Institute, told U.S. News and World Report. “That’s because the northern part especially – Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont – don’t get as much immigration as the other parts of the country.” Though Somalian refugees who settled in Lewiston and Portland have not assimilated as smoothly as hoped, Maine needs immigrants to bolster its homogenous population.