Maine economy tanked more in Q2 than most states
New data show Maine’s economy shriveled more than almost any other state's during the second quarter of 2020, as the world reeled from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Maine gross domestic product, adjusted for inflation and for seasonality, shrank 34.4% from April through June, according to a report released Friday by the U.S. Department of Commerce Bureau of Economic Analysis.
On an annualized basis, Maine's output of goods and services during Q2 was $61.5 billion, after reaching $68.3 billion during the first quarter.
The quarterly falloff was worse than the decline in real GDP for the entire U.S., 31.4%, and ranked Maine No. 41 among the states and the District of Columbia in economic performance.
Each of those jurisdictions showed a decline for the second quarter, ranging from a comparatively modest 20.4% in D.C. to a whopping 42.2% in both Hawaii and Nevada.
Maine’s GDP performance ranked so-so among New England states, better than that of New Hampshire, at No. 45 with a 36.9% reduction, and Vermont, which placed No. 47 with a 38.2% decrease. Maine ranked behind Connecticut, No. 23, with a 31.1% decrease; Massachusetts, No. 28, 31.6%; and Rhode Island, No. 31, 32.4%.
During the first three months of 2020, when the U.S. was only beginning to feel the effects of the pandemic, Maine’s GDP fell 6.5%, the sharpest decline in New England.
Across 21 economic sectors tracked by the analysis, Maine recorded output declines for the second quarter in all but three — agriculture and forestry, mining, and finance and insurance.
The steepest falls were in accommodation and food services, which decreased 7.09%, more than in any other New England state except Vermont; and in health care and social assistance, which was down 6.07%, the greatest percentage decline for that sector in the entire region.
The declines in those two sectors mirrored national ones. Across the U.S., accommodation and food services output plummeted 88.4%, and was the leading contributor to decreases in 17 states and D.C. Health care and social assistance GDP fell 48.1% nationally, and was the leading contributor in 18 states and D.C.
“The decline in second-quarter GDP reflected the response to COVID-19,” the Bureau of Economic Analysis wrote in a news release, “as businesses and schools continued remote work and consumers and businesses canceled, restricted or redirected their spending.”
But the analysis cautioned that the full economic effects of the pandemic cannot be quantified in the GDP estimate because they are “embedded in source data and cannot be separately identified.”
State GDP is the market value of goods and services produced by the labor and property located in a state. The measure is the state counterpart of nation's GDP, the federal government's most comprehensive measure of U.S. economic activity, according to the bureau.
For a complete look at the data, click here.
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