Maine

• Income gap: Households earn meaningfully less than the national median, affecting retail demand, housing absorption, and tax base statewide.
• Aging population: Median age of 45 is materially above the U.S. norm; succession planning and senior-services demand are real factors.

• Largest private-sector industry: Health Care and Social Assistance employs 113,852 workers (25.6% of the tracked sectors), at an average wage of $66,287. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 101,670 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: State GDP of $99.2B (2024).
• Wage stratification: Finance and Insurance averages $111,711 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $33,187, a 3.4x spread in the same economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Fishing, Hunting and Trapping concentrates at 21.57x the national norm, top-decile concentration, the kind of signature sector that defines a region's economic identity.
• Cluster depth: 15 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, suggesting an interconnected industrial base across the state.
• Attraction whitespace: 8 sub-sectors register LQ < 0.5, candidates for diversification or recruitment.

• In line with national: Home value to income ratio of 4.0x sits near the ~4.1x national average; affordability is neither a clear advantage nor a recruitment friction.
• High home ownership: 74.3% owner-occupied; rental supply may be tight for incoming workers.
• Elevated vacancy: 20.6% vacancy rate; potential redevelopment opportunity.
• Rent affordability gap: None of the 5 HUD Fair Market Rent bedroom sizes sit below what a household on the median renter income of $44,257 can pay without cost burden (~$1,106/mo), and 44.1% of renter households are already cost-burdened, 19.8% severely so.

• Succession risk is real: 25.4% of working-age residents are 55-64. Plan for retirements over the next decade and pair attraction strategy with talent retention.
• Healthy participation: 63.5% of the population aged 18+ is in the labor force, reflecting a steady, available workforce statewide.

Maine shows strong potential for fishing, hunting and trapping attraction, with a 21.57x concentration and 664 jobs in this sub-sector. Near-term succession risk is elevated, with 25.4% of the working-age population within 10 years of retirement age.

Cluster depth across fishing, hunting and trapping, leather and allied product manufacturing, and forestry and logging creates supply-chain attraction leverage, a structural advantage for industrial recruitment.