The One Minute Geographer: Maine’s Population Problem
We talked about the size of Maine in terms of area, but not too much yet about its population. Maine 2020’s population of 1,360,000 is small but not tiny — it ranks 42nd, so eight states have fewer people. Yet, to give you an idea of that size, consider that a lot of medium-sized metropolitan areas also have about that many people — places like Memphis TN, Richmond VA and Raleigh NC.
Let’s talk demography. Maine struggles to maintain its population. I know I said in the last post that based on 2021 Census estimates, Maine is getting a boost in domestic migration into the state, likely due to people fleeing Covid. We don’t know how long that will continue and how many of these recent migrants from other states will stay, but the thing is, Maine needs that boost. Maine had one of the slowest population growth rates since 2010 — only 2.6% compared to the national rate of 7.4%. Unless the recent growth of in-migration continues, Maine could well join the growing list of states losing people. West Virginia, Mississippi and Illinois lost population between 2010 and 2020. Connecticut only grew by a fraction.
Maine has the oldest median age of all 50 states (2019 data). Half of Maine’s residents are over 45 and half under. Compare that to the youngest state, Utah, where the median age is 31. It’s also no surprise that with that average…
