"An Aging State: Demographic Change and the Implications for Maine's Economy"

On November 30th at the Muskie School in Portland, Maine state economist and Muskie School graduate, Amanda Rector gave a short, but direct and informative presentation on Maine's population, how it's aging, and the implications of having a lot of old people in Maine.

Rector opened up her lecture by giving a few key stats to understanding what Maine is currently going through. According to Rector, Maine's population as of the last census, was a whopping 1,328,361 people, good enough to be the 41st largest states in the entire United States. The population grew 4.2% between the 200 census and the 2010 census. 94.4 percent of the population was white/non-hispanic says Rector. Maine is very pale these days.

Rector actually gave a good history lesson as part of her lecture, looking at some of the population spikes and changes throughout the years. She said the population spiked once in the 1970s, due to the "back to the land movement," which brought in many people from away. Since then though, the baby boomers have stopped having children, and the birth rate in Maine has sharply declined, with higher increases in death rate as the population continues to age more and more.

Rector said in her presentation that Maine was aging much more quickly than the United States as a whole, and that by 2030 the average age in Maine would be a whole 8 years older than the average age of the rest of the United States. Another frightening statistic she gave us, was that by 2030, it's a very real possibility that Maine will be home to more people over the age of 65 than under the age of 25. She says this is a major issue for the state, because there would be fewer students in Maine, and in return fewer workers as well.

On the bright side, the health services industry in Maine is thriving. Thanks old people.

The population is waning so much, that our current population of youth in Maine is about the same it was in the year 1950. Yet another indicator that more and more young people are leaving the state in search of greener pastures.

Rector did provide some solutions shes been working on with our dear leader, Gov. Paul LePage though. She says that one step Maine could take would be to attract more young, unskilled workers to the state. She didn't provide an exact way of doing this, but I imagine it would be by "opening Maine for business" and bringing back an industrial and manufacturing base to Maine's economy.

Rector did bring up the opportunity of alternative energy in Maine though, and the role it could play in our economy very soon. She says that people with education in experience in the STEM fields (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) will have a very solid economic opportunity in the coming years.

Getting more people to actually get there education in these fields is extremely important though, as Maine currently has a low proportion of people with bachelor's degrees, which correlates to Maine's low median wages. Expanding upon education in these areas will be crucial for Maine's economy, and education should not be limited to the college level alone. Rector talked about the importance of industrial and technical educational programs at all levels, including high school.

For the most part Rector gave a great summary of what Maine's economy is doing right now, why it's doing it, and how to make it stop doing it, so it actually gets better. Rector seems to be more in tune with my ideas, rather than the ideas of Paulie up in the Blaine House, which is a plus for her, because I'm pretty sure I could do a better job as governor, and I don't even have the experience of owning a crappy retail chain.*

*I actually love Marderns.

I don't know why I can't rotate the picture. Sorry.