Make a gift in honor of the good that comes from BDN journalism in your hands, and help raise $60,000 this spring to support our reporting. Make a donation now.
A new report on affordability pressures finds that just more than half of Maine households are able to make ends meet.
Specifically, 54.2% of Maine households earn enough to meet their basic needs, roughly in line with the national average of 55%, according to the report from the nonpartisan Brookings Institution.
To measure affordability challenges, Brookings looked at housing, food, child care, healthcare and transportation costs and then compared the total to income data from the Census Bureau.
The report shows that roughly 45-50% of Maine households have been struggling with basic costs for the last decade, though for a brief stint after the pandemic, about 35% of Mainers were unable to make ends meet.
Single Maine adults with at least one child are, by far, struggling the most, with just 30% earning enough to pay for basic needs. Just more than 50% of Maine households with two parents and at least one child are able to make ends meet, while roughly 44% of single Maine adults with no children are earning enough to pay for their basic needs.
The report also shows that Black Mainers have historically struggled the most to make ends meet. In 2024, just 34% of Black Maine households earned enough to cover everyday costs.
This story appears through a media partnership with Maine Public.
