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In 1999, median household income in Colorado was about $60,000, with inflation factored in. A decade later, median household income has fallen to about $55,000, points out The Denver Post. The numbers come from the Census Bureau’s annual American Community Survey, providing a snapshot of the impacts from the recession that started in 2007. Obviously, the hardest-hit Americans have been those who earn the least. The number of Colorado households earning less than $25,000 a year rose to 21.4 percent in 2009, up from 20.1 percent in 2007. And households raking in more than $100,000 fell to 22.7 percent last year, down from 23.3 percent in 2007.
Blacks, more than any other demographic of color, have struggled disproportionately: In the Denver-Aurora metropolitan area, their median household incomes plummeted by 23 percent to $31,870 in 2008, down from $41,429 in 2007.
In relatively affluent Boulder, median household income fell 17 percent in the last decade, notes the Daily Camera, putting the town’s numbers among the largest in terms of income decreases in the state, next to Aurora (down 23 percent in the same timeframe) and Longmont (a drop of 21 percent).