The coronavirus pandemic has been a shock to the nationwide financial system, and Maine is not any exception. However as onerous because it’s been on Maine employees and companies, the pandemic is creating alternatives that nobody may have predicted.
CNN and Moody’s Analytics rank Maine No. 1 on its “Back to Normal Index,” which mixes a variety of financial statistics to find out the speed at which state economies are recovering. In accordance with these measures, Maine has recovered 93 % of its financial output from mid March, making it a bounce-back chief. The nationwide common is 80 %, and Louisiana is in final place, at 73 % recovered.
This quantity must be considered critically: A great Maine financial system in late winter isn’t the place most of us anticipated to be in September. And COVID-19’s financial hardship has not been unfold evenly, hitting the tourism and hospitality industries closely, whereas leaving different sectors unscathed.
But it surely’s additionally vital to notice what places Maine on the highest of the listing – a red-hot housing market. It’s centered within the Portland space, and largely pushed by out-of-state buyers seeking to relocate. And that is the chance.
An estimated one third of American workers labored from dwelling through the pandemic, and plenty of employers had been pleasantly shocked with how properly it functioned. Many employers and staff plan to proceed distant working after the general public well being disaster ends, making higher use of their time and eliminating lengthy commutes. When you don’t have to return into the workplace, it doesn’t actually matter the place you might be, and a few of these persons are deciding that they’d reasonably be in Maine.
This is a chance for Maine, particularly areas which have suffered job losses in recent times. We don’t should lure an organization to maneuver just a few hundred jobs to Maine with profitable tax abatements and different incentives if we will welcome just a few hundred employees who will come right here with their jobs and put money into our communities. They received’t want subsidies as a result of they are going to be attracted by what we have already got – a clear surroundings, housing that’s inexpensive in comparison with what’s accessible in main metropolitan areas, and a relaxed tempo of life.
However these jobs won’t ever come except we will assure that they are going to be capable to entry dependable, high-speed web service. Sadly, that may’t be promised in a lot of the state.
The state’s 2020 broadband motion plan discovered that 20 % of Maine households haven’t any web entry, and plenty of enterprise folks report insufficient service to fulfill their wants. That’s in all probability why Maine has the bottom fee of properties related to the web of any state in New England, according to the U.S. Census.
This isn’t only a query of attracting distant employees from different states. A scarcity of web entry created unequal alternative for rural college students when their colleges had been shut down final semester, a divide that may develop extra extreme as colleges go no less than to part-time distance studying this yr. And senior residents and others with out service haven’t been in a position to entry telemedicine companies. Only a few companies of any form can function with out web entry, and plenty of want high-speed service to speak with customers and suppliers.
This isn’t an issue that shall be solved by market forces. Identical to roads and telephone traces, financial exercise will observe the infrastructure, but it surely received’t develop in locations that lack the fundamentals. Excessive-speed web is as fundamental as electrical energy within the trendy financial system.
Work is getting extra cellular, and that provides Maine an amazing alternative to construct its financial system. However that received’t occur except we proceed to increase high-speed web service.
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