Voter Voices: Cost of Living and Cost of Housing

This story is part of our Voter Voices collaboration with 60 newsrooms across Colorado. Our Voter Voices survey identified the economy and cost of living as a top issue among nearly all groups, especially voters 18 to 29 and conservatives across Colorado. 

By Jennifer Brown, The Colorado Sun

One of the top issues on the minds of Colorado voters this election is the cost of living, with about 15% in our Voter Voices survey saying they intend to focus first on the economy as they mark their ballots.

Coloradans are concerned about the price of housing, groceries, gas, utility bills and everything else it takes to keep households running. That’s not shocking considering that the average household has spent $34,194 more since 2020 due to inflation, according to research from the Common Sense Institute. 

“That’s the cost of higher education tuition,” said Kelly Caufield, the institute’s executive director. “All Coloradans should care about the economy and the cost of living here.”

“I am so concerned about issues that impact my family right now! I am paying 1800.00 a month for my grandson’s daycare because it is so high,” said Angela Rivera-Malpiede of Denver. “I am worried about what we might lose if we don’t start making sound decisions. I am so fearful for my grandchildren.”

While economists say inflation is “cooling,” Coloradans are still feeling the economic crush of the past few years. The average rent for a one-bedroom apartment is about $2,000 in Denver. The average price of a home in Colorado is now above $540,000. Food prices in Colorado and nationwide rose 25% from 2019 to 2023.  

What the Candidates Say 

Candidates running to represent Colorado in Congress all say the economy is a top issue, but have different ideas about how to rein in the cost of living. 

Congress can affect the cost of living with policies on taxes, industry regulations that decrease jobs and social services programs that provide food and housing assistance.

For example, in Colorado’s highly competitive 8th District, which includes Greeley, Brighton, Commerce City and Thornton, incumbent Yadira Caraveo, a Thornton Democrat, and challenger Gabe Evans, a Republican state representative from Fort Lupton, both say they want to support workers and create more affordable housing. But they have different approaches. 

Caraveo said she wants to use grant money and tax incentives to entice developers to build more affordable housing. Evans said he would try to encourage more housing construction by reducing “excessive” regulations and building codes.

More than 7,100 Coloradans have responded to our Voter Voices survey and across the political spectrum, many of them said the cost of housing is a top concern.

By Megan Verlee, CPR News

Living in Colorado, for many, means spending a lot of time worrying about how to make the rent or the mortgage, or whether they’ll ever be able to buy a home.  One survey recipient who chose to stay anonymous summed up what he wants candidates to tell him.

“How to manage anyone under the age of 30 getting by in this state. I’m 28, my LLC earned over 6 figures yet I am scraping by and have no chance of buying a house.”

Huong Dang of Highland wants politicians to be more transparent. “On the local level, I want to hear candidates’ plans on addressing Denver’s housing crisis,” Dang said. “More housing in dense areas should be built to lower rental costs throughout the metro. There should be rent control.”

And Madison Lauterbach, who lives in Englewood, wants to see politicians address the things that raise costs.  “I’d like candidates to talk about imposing regulations on corporations to combat the out-of-control cost of living and housing unattainability,” Lauterbach said.

Housing costs have been on a long and sometimes sharp climb throughout the state. In the Denver area, the average sale price for homes this year is $617,000, up from $304,000 a decade ago.  In Colorado Springs, home prices have risen 119% since 2015, according to the Common Sense Institute. This shift has been triggered by a long-standing supply-demand imbalance. Between 2013 and 2020, the state welcomed over 40,000 new residents each year. And while Colorado has built a lot of new housing, it hasn’t been enough to keep prices from climbing ever higher.

“I’ve lived in Colorado my entire life,” Maciej Wal wrote in his response to the Voter Voices survey. “When I was graduating high school in 2013, a $50,000 a year salary would get you a house, a car, and money to be able to THRIVE. Now if you make 50,000 a year, you are barely surviving.”

In many ways, what’s happening here is just an extreme version of what people are experiencing across the country. Since the Great Recession, America has seen an ever-widening housing gap, with more and more middle-income families priced out of home ownership.

Those trends have hit renters hard, too. Denver’s median monthly rent increased an eye-watering 82% between 2009 and 2021, climbing from $856 a month to $1,554, one of the steepest increases in the country in that period. Recent U.S. Census data found that a quarter of Denver tenants spend more than half their paycheck on rent. While both the inflow of new people and the spike in housing costs have leveled off in the last year or so, households across Colorado still feel the strain. 

For his part, Wal, a political moderate who lives south of Denver, is frustrated by all the forces he sees standing in the way of building more housing.

“We have people blocking new developments because they don’t like change,” Wal said. “And the developments that we do get are all for rent. How are we supposed to build community when no one feels like they own a stake in their community? 

Wal wants to see Colorado start building more affordable units, like condos, that people can buy into, and feel like they are part of something.

What the Candidates Say  

Like many of his fellow Republican candidates, Gabe Evans, who’s trying to flip the 8th District, blames federal spending for contributing to higher housing costs and says he’d work to dial back federal dollars. 

Evans argues that government spending sparked the recent jump in inflation, which led the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates in recent years. Those higher rates have meant higher mortgage payments for homebuyers and encouraged homeowners to stay put rather than lose their favorable rates. The trend is shifting, though; in September, the Federal Reserve lowered interest rates for the first time in four years, with analysts expecting more cuts in the future.

Rep. Yadira Caraveo, the Democrat whom Evans is trying to unseat, touts her support for boosting the low-income housing tax credit (and renaming it the affordable housing tax credit). She’s also a co-sponsor of a bill that would prod local governments to allow denser housing, which tends to be more affordable.

Many of the Republican candidates also criticize federal energy efficiency and other construction mandates they argue drive up the cost of new homes. For their part, Democratic candidates lean into federal funding and tax incentives to support affordable housing construction.

Two of Colorado’s members of Congress have thrown their bipartisan support behind an effort to build new housing for mountain towns on nearby national forest land. Rep. Joe Neguse is sponsoring a bill to make those projects easier, with Rep. Lauren Boebert signed on as a co-sponsor.  Despite the efforts, change is not happening fast enough.

“I would like my candidates to talk about the housing market in Denver and what is being done to secure affordable housing for those (many) who don’t make more than the average cost of living in Denver,” said Logan Kurtz, who now lives in Lakewood.

Eric Hintsa of the Boulder area echoes Kurtz’s concerns, saying politicians should focus on “economic opportunity, the cost of living, and why so many people are just barely getting by (and at risk if anything suddenly goes wrong).”