President Joe Biden will visit Maine on Friday to tout his economic policies, which the White House is trying to brand as “Bidenomics.”
The visit, which will take him to the Lewiston-Auburn area, is intended to take credit for growth in Maine’s manufacturing sector.
More than a few Mainers have reacted to this news with some version of “huh?”
If there’s a sparkling success story to tell about the revival of American manufacturing, Maine’s probably not the first place you’d look.
American manufacturing has declined over the past three decades, but the impact of that trend has been particularly acute in Maine. Shoe factories, paper mills, textile mills, and thousands of other manufacturing businesses have disappeared.
According to Maine Department of Labor, which goes back to 2001, the decline in manufacturing jobs was steady until 2008-2009, when the Great Recession sharply accelerated the job losses.
The job losses stopped around 2010, but the growth trends have been fairly anemic ever since. Although wages have grown steadily since 2010, job creation in the sector has been flat, with the exception of changes attributable to COVID-19 policies. On balance, manufacturing in Maine has seen only modest growth — regardless of who is in the White House or the Blaine House.
Manufacturing in Maine by the Numbers
In 2001, Maine had 2,077 businesses that the Maine Department of Labor categorized as belonging to the manufacturing sector. In that year, an average of 74,538 workers were employed by those businesses, and their annual wages amounted to $2.7 billion. The average weekly pay for a Maine-based manufacturing employee was $701.
When you adjust for inflation, a weekly wage of $701 in 2001 had the equivalent buying power of $1,125.56 in 2022 dollars. With the average manufacturing job paying $1,256 in 2022, the average worker has only seen his purchasing power increase by $6,000 – $7,000 per year since 2001 — this, despite extraordinary increases in labor productivity, especially in manufacturing.
In terms of total wages paid, adjusting for inflation shows that Maine’s manufacturing sector remains a shadow of its former self. The $2.7bn manufacturing workers made in 2001 is the equivalent of $4.6bn in 2022 dollars, but the sector only accounted for $3.5bn in that year. Then there’s the obvious: Maine’s manufacturing sector is still down a net 20,500 jobs since 2001.
Under Gov. Janet Mills, the data from the Maine Department of Labor shows a continuation of the wage growth trends that began in 2010, slight increases in the total number of employees in that sector, and an overall increase in the number of firms (although COVID spending obviously distorted those firm numbers).
In 2018, Maine had 1,883 businesses engaged in manufacturing that employed a total of 51,898 workers who received a total of $2.9 billion in wages. The average weekly pay for those jobs was $1,075.
From 2018 to 2022, the total number of manufacturing firms in Maine grew from 1,883 to 1,943, the total number of manufacturing employees grew from 51,898 to 54,019 (+2,121), and the total wages paid in the sector grew from $2.9 billion to $3.5 billion. Average weekly manufacturing wages rose from $1,075 to $1,256.
Prior to COVID-19, the number of new firms entering Maine’s manufacturing sector was growing at a predictable rate. When the federal government dumped billions of dollars in pandemic aid into the state, firms sprang up in Maine at an unprecedented rate. However, that economic activity was not sustainable absent government spending, and the rapid growth was followed by a massive loss of businesses. That trend suggests COVID-19 spending triggered some serious malinvestment in the state.
How much of this modest growth in manufacturing is attributable to the Mills Administration’s economic policies? Well, that depends on who’s telling the story, how closely you examine those numbers, whether you adjust for inflation, and how you interpret the role of federal COVID-19 spending.
When former Republican Gov. Paul LePage took office in 2010, Maine had spent the last decade hemorrhaging manufacturing jobs. During LePage’s first term, that trajectory reversed for the first time since 2003. However, from 2010 to 2017, Maine’s manufacturing employment hovered between 50,000 and 51,000 jobs. All told, Maine gained 71 manufacturing firms and 244 manufacturing jobs from 2010 to 2017.
Judging by the numbers, Mills can make the case that the manufacturing sector has done better on her watch than under LePage, but the story is a little more complicated than that. Macroeconomic trends play an arguably bigger role than any state level policies. And LePage could say that his administration was saddled with President Obama’s economic policies while Mills had the benefit of MAGAnomics. The effects on Maine of who is in the White House also likely pale in comparison to the injection of $8.8 billion during the pandemic.
Have we gained manufacturing jobs under Gov. Mills? Yes, about 2,150 — and it only cost $8,800,000,000 in federal spending. Put differently, Maine’s manufacturing sector added one job for every $4 million in COVID-19 money the state received. And that doesn’t account for record-setting budgets on the state side.
So where has the growth in Maine’s manufacturing sector occurred since 2001 and under the Mills Administration?
Measuring by the number of businesses in each manufacturing sub-sector, only five of twenty sub sectors have seen an increase since 2001. The largest growth since 2001 is far and away the Beverage and Tobacco Product sector, with an increase of 120 firms. The other sectors that have grown include Furniture and Related Products (+84), Computer and Electronic Product (+34), Plastics and Rubber Products (+19), and Miscellaneous (+10). In other words, to the extent manufacturing is having a resurgence in Maine, it’s being led by electronics, breweries, and wineries.
Over the same period of time, Maine has lost 94 printing business, 65 machinery businesses, 62 wood product manufacturers, 37 apparel manufacturers, and 12 paper companies. In terms of changes in the number of employees in a given sector, apparel manufacturing has been hardest hit, with more than 8,000 jobs lost since 2001. The next biggest job losses are in metal working (-3,617), food manufacturing (-2,627), and printing (-2,530).
Five sub-sectors have seen job growth: Computer and Electronic (+2,635), Beverage and Tobacco (+2,040), Metal Manufacturing (+789), Plastics and Rubber (+352) and Miscellaneous (+53). Metal manufacturing accounts for the largest share of wage increases from 2001 to 2022 at +$343,224,306.
Looking at those same numbers from 2018, when Gov. Mills was first elected, to 2022, the trends are similar.
In that period, Maine added a net 43 beverage and tobacco businesses, 26 furniture businesses, and 19 computer and electronic product manufacturers. While the new beverage firms account for 538 jobs, 1,355 jobs were added in the electronics category and 1,107 in metal manufacturing.
Political narratives often have only a tangential relationship with facts and context. But judging by data from the Maine Department of Labor, it would be a little pollyanna to claim that manufacturing is once again thriving in Maine.
I would like to know the statistics on Healthcare jobs. Since mandating the COVID vaccine ( it is still being mandated as of today under the EAU)many healthcare professionals quit, were terminated or fled the State of Maine.Any statistics on that .
I am one of those healthcare workers in-hirable in Maine
Well written article & supporting numbers.
No opinion, “facts ma’am, just the facts”
Thanks (& why I read often & donate)
Maybe hasn’t hit Maine yet. There are 35,000 infrastructure projects underway all over the country and there has been half a trillion dollars of new private infrastructure invested. It will take a bit more time but we are on the right track.