Is Tourism Maine’s Largest Industry?

2 Comments

Last week it was reported in an article titled “Tourism still No. 1, but …” that “Tourism is Maine’s biggest producer of jobs and tax revenue. It’s just not as big as advertised . . . It generated $10.06 billion in sales, 140,000 jobs and $429 million in taxes . . .”
However, the article is wrong in that tourism is not Maine’s biggest industry. Instead, it is the U.S. Federal Government. For Federal Fiscal Year 2005 (the latest data available), the federal government poured in $11.356 billion into Maine’s economy–making the federal government the largest industry in Maine.