We've talked a lot about housing on KUNC – not least of all the hefty price tags. But there's more to Colorado's economic picture that makes it expensive to live here. The Colorado Sun reporter Michael Booth joined KUNC’s Nikole Robinson Carroll to discuss The Sun's latest series, High Cost of Colorado, about how pricey it gets here.
“I think everybody listening has their own experience of how the high cost of Colorado is affecting their lives, and we just decided to set out and tell as many of those stories as possible over the next couple of months,” Booth told KUNC. “The stories that people tell us are amazing, and based on some numbers that are pretty eye-opening.”
For example, The Colorado Sun reported that based on state averages, anyone earning minimum wage in Colorado ($13.65/hour) would have to work 77 hours a week to afford a moderately-priced one-bedroom apartment with rent around $1,364 per month. And renters aren't the only ones feeling the burn.
"The number of hours it takes at the median wage in a month to pay for the mortgage for a median house in Colorado has gone up from 43 hours of work in that month to now 104 hours of work," Booth said. "And there's only 177 work hours available in an average work month (based on a 40-hour work week). So that tells you the strain that's on a lot of people."
Redfin reported in October Americans need a salary of $115,000 to afford a home at the typical U.S. median price. The median income for a Coloradan in 2022 was $70,952.
Booth said the High Cost of Colorado series took on a wide variety of topics, from the price of a hamburger in Colorado to the cost of having a pet and health care expenditures.
“Readers have already responded, after just a day of this series, with ideas that they would like us to tackle,” Booth said. “We welcome reader suggestions and we hope people will tune in.”
The series launched over the weekend and Booth said it will run over the next couple of months. Find the series so far here and contact The Colorado Sun about the issues you want to see covered here.
