When it comes to balancing living costs against incomes, some places in Colorado are a much better value than others, according to a study from the Colorado Department of Local Affairs.
“Elbert is the best county to live in for trade-off of income and living costs,” said state demographer Elizabeth Garner, speaking at the 33rd annual demography meeting at Arapahoe Community College.
Among the worst: Denver.
For two decades, the Colorado Legislative Council has tracked consumer living costs for food, housing, clothing, transportation and other items in every school district.
Garner’s office took the , confirming the wide variations seen across the state.
A basket of consumer items that costs $89,810 in Pitkin County, the most expensive place to live in Colorado, can be had for $40,438 in Kiowa County, the cheapest place to live.
The five major ski resort counties — Pitkin, Summit, San Miguel, Routt, and Eagle — are also the five most expensive places to live.
Denver and Boulder also come with some of the highest price tags in the state.
Living in Weld County rather than Denver County can save a household $7,000 a year — assuming the wage earners in the family can bring home the same-size paychecks, Garner said.
Housing, not unexpectedly, contributes to the widest variations in living costs, while transportation is the most stable consumer expenditure statewide.
Rural areas, outside the mountain resorts, tend to offer a better bargain for living costs, especially on the Eastern Plains, but the trade-offs include sparser populations, lower incomes and much older housing.
Although those areas help feed the rest of the country, food costs in the state’s agricultural counties can run 10 percent to 15 percent above more urban areas.
“Stores control costs in more limited retail markets,” Garner said.
Confirming that point, rural counties, such as Teller and Gilpin, that border urban areas don’t see the same kind of mark-ups on food and other retail items.
Garner’s office also compared median family incomes in each county against those basic living costs to determine the ability of typical households to get by.
Most counties were either high income and high living costs or low incomes and low living costs. But a few crossed both worlds, for better or worse.
The best-of-both-world counties — higher-than-average incomes and lower-than-average costs — included Elbert, Arapahoe, Teller, Larimer and Rio Blanco.
At the other extreme are counties with higher-than-average living costs and below-average family incomes. The worst of both worlds counties included Denver, Garfield, Lake, Gunnison, Ouray, San Juan and La Plata.
A variety of other demographic and economic information was presented at Friday’s meeting.
Mountain counties along the central Interstate 70 corridor have seen their natural population rate, births minus deaths, turn negative in what is expected to become a statewide trend.
Net migration into the state continued to increase this year, despite a slowing in the overall rate of job growth from 3 percent at the start of the year to 1.7 percent last month.
Denver County’s population has likely surpassed El Paso County’s this year, continuing the back-and-forth battle.
Although rising housing costs are proving a strain on household budgets, they tend to correlate with areas of strong job growth and shouldn’t derail the economy, said state budget economist Jason Schrock.
Aldo Svaldi: 303-954-1410, asvaldi@denverpost.com or @aldosvaldi
