Business Insider ranks Maine economy 49th
Business Insider, a business news website and aggregator, has dropped Maine in its rank of state economies to 49th. That represents a drop of two spots from its 2014 tally and coincides with the ranking Forbes magazine gave Maine in its annual Best States for Business feature last November.
Business Insider based its ranking on comparisons of Maine’s economy with the other states using six measures: recent change in housing prices, non-farm payroll job growth, unemployment rate, gross domestic product per capita, average weekly wage and state government surplus and deficit.
“Maine scored poorly on many of our metrics,”Business Insider stated. “Maine saw only a 0.84% increase in jobs between December 2013 and December 2014. Maine's 2013 GDP per capita was also low at $38,518. Maine also had a low Q2 2014 average weekly wage of just $746.”
Mississippi came in as the weakest state economy in the ranking while North Dakota ranked No. 1, due largely to the Bakken shale fracking boom that has boosted employment in industries related to oil and gas.
Massachusetts, the highest-ranking New England state, was listed at 10th and was singled out for having the highest wages in the country, with an average weekly wage of $1,158.
Here’s how the other New England fared, with some of Business Insider’s observations: New Hampshire (22), seventh lowest December 2014 unemployment rate, 4%; Connecticut (23), the only state to see a decline in housing prices, with prices dropping 1.27% between Q3 2013 and Q3 2014; Rhode Island (41), fifth highest December 2014 unemployment rate, 6.8%; Vermont (44), third lowest growth rate in housing market between 2013 and 2014, with just a 0.17% increase.
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