Lower commodity prices, combined with cuts in the information industry and military pay, put a brake on personal income growth in Colorado during the first quarter, according to a .
Personal incomes rose 0.9 percent in Colorado in the first quarter from the fourth quarter of 2014, a drop by half from the 1.8 percent growth rate between the third and fourth quarters.
Strong gains in construction and real estate, as well as a jump in government payments, helped offset declines elsewhere and allowed Colorado to rank 28th among states on personal income growth.
Personal income consists of the wages that workers earn but also includes the business income of sole proprietors, including farmers, as well as rents, dividends, interest and government payments to individuals.
The biggest income drop specific to Colorado came in the information sector, which includes software and print publishers, broadcasters, telecom firms and data processors.
Nationally, earnings in that sector were up 1.14 percent in the first quarter, but they dropped 3.65 percent in Colorado, representing a $414 million hit to state personal income in the first quarter.
“I assume it is an anomaly, something that happened with one of our big corporations,” said Erik Mitisek, CEO of the Colorado Technology Association.
Earnings in the sector, which were running at an annualized rate of $10.45 billion in the third quarter, rose to a $11.34 billion rate in the fourth before falling back to $10.92 billion in the first. That suggests that larger-than-usual year-end bonuses, possibly tied to some recent mergers, might have played a role, Mitisek said.
Federal military pay, which fell $99 million in Colorado during the first quarter from the fourth, was another drag on income, reaching its lowest level in four years.
Farm earnings nationally fell 22.4 percent in the first quarter from the fourth. Colorado suffered a less severe 9.7 percent decrease over the same period. That represented $169 million less in earnings for farmers and ranchers in the state on a seasonally adjusted annualized basis.
Mining earnings, which include oil and gas extraction, also weighed on incomes, reflective of a sharp drop in oil prices. The earnings fell 3.5 percent nationally in the first quarter, the first quarterly decline since the fall of 2009.
Colorado’s 2.13 percent decline, which represented $191 million in reduced mining income, was less severe than the declines seen in other oil patch states.
Aldo Svaldi: 303-954-1410, asvaldi@denverpost.com or twitter.com/aldosvaldi
