The U.S. Census report released last week that shows more people are moving to Maine than leaving is a testament, in part, to the growing number of retirees or soon-to-be retired flocking to the Midcoast and the success of the Internet in allowing people to telecommute.
Maine ranked fifth in the country in terms of the number of people per 1,000 residents, who migrated to the state from 2000 to 2004. The state with the biggest draw was Nevada, with 23.3 residents per 1,000 coming in, followed by Arizona, Florida, Idaho and then Maine at 6.3. New Hampshire was on Maine’s heals with 6.1.
Maine was also one of only four states in the country to go from losing population to other states in the 1990s to gaining it in the last four years.
Just who these newcomers are isn’t perfectly clear, but they seem to be coming from Massachusetts and New Hampshire and secondarily from the Northeast, said Charlie Colgan, a professor at the Muskie School of Public Service, who keeps tabs on domestic migration with data from the Internal Revenue Service.
“We don’t know a lot about them,” Colgan said, but “they’re almost certainly somewhat older, in all likelihood in their 50s and 60s, and some are coming to retire.”
Colgan said the big wave of retirees has yet to hit the state or the country, but what he calls “near retirees” and now empty-nesters are moving into their retirement homes on or near the coast and commuting to work outside the state or telecommuting on the Internet.
Colgan can’t prove the Internet has played a big role in allowing out-of-staters to continue to work while living in Maine, but “If it’s not a factor, it would be totally shocking,” he said.
While all counties in Maine had net inmigration in the last four years except Aroostook and Washington, the retirement “hot spots” in Maine are coastal York County, Lincoln County, including Boothbay, Boothbay Harbor and Damariscotta, and the communities along western Penobscot Bay, from Rockland in Knox County to Belfast in Waldo County. Mount Desert Island in Hancock County continues to be a strong draw.
The new residents from away also tend to have higher incomes based on IRS data, said Colgan, who serves on the state’s Economic Forecasting Commission.
Maine Revenue Service would like to know more about those earning income outside of the state because they are affecting – in a good way – the state’s income tax collection. Mike Allen, the chief economist for Maine Revenue Service, said it’s an issue that’s been discussed as it relates to revenue and economic forecasting.
“They’re bringing income into the state,” he said, but most of the economic data forecasters use right now is “solely about the state of Maine, within the borders of Maine, and doesn’t really pick up this type of taxpayer.”
“We concentrate on the Maine economy,” Allen said, but as commuting and telecommuting grow, “the economies of metro-Boston become more important to the Maine forecast; the national economy becomes more important.”
The actual number of new residents from other states is estimated at only 32,600 in the last four years, but it has a big impact on a small population state like Maine.
“You don’t need a lot to make a difference in our economy because we’re small,” said Michael Montagna, who analyzes U.S. Census data for the State Planning Department.
He said the overall report shows “Americans of all ages are trying to move to the next best place,” and want to be near cities, but not in them.
And, while the “vast majority is always going to have to live where they work,” he said the Internet allows some to “work where they live.”
“With the Internet, I can now be where I want to be,” Montagna said of the changing workforce moving to Maine. “They go into the office for a week of every month,” or take the occasional business trip to New York or L.A.
In the interim they can live in place like Maine, he said, where the schools are good, crime is low and you “get more of a house for your money.”
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