Maine versus New Hampshire I
I will begin a new series on the MHPC blog called “Maine versus New Hampshire.” The purpose of the series is to highlight similarities and differences between Maine and our chief economic competitor–New Hampshire. For better or worse, Maine’s only domestic border is with New Hampshire. The importance of which was highlighted in our recent report on ME-NH cross-border shopping.
The first post will start with the basics by simply reporting the differences in state revenues and expenditures between the two states based on data from the Census Bureau. Here are some highlights from the state-level data (click “continue reading” to see Table):
* Maine collects $1,509,761,000 more in taxes.
* Maine spends $1,866,735,000 more.
* Maine spends $1,090,609,000 more on public welfare.
* Maine spends $340,648,000 more in health.
* Maine spends $86,658,000 more in government administration.
* New Hampshire spends more on Education ($22,213,000), Hospitals ($1,090,000) and Parks and Recreation (2,119,000).
* New Hampshire has $2,432,942,000 more in debt and spends an additional $115,633,000 in interest.
Finally, when comparing these numbers, keep in mind that New Hampshire’s personal income is $9,942,453,000 larger than Maine’s.
