Colorado, from a New Yorker's point of view

“There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.” – Charles Wentworth Dilke, but popularized by Mark Twain

Statistics lie, then again maybe they don’t.  You just need to fully understand what the statistics represent.

When I first decided to move I partially selected Denver because it had stronger than average job growth.  I really liked the idea of a living in a growing city with a strong economy.   I don’t remember where I read this information, but I assumed that it was standardized for population, as in job growth is x per 100,000 people.  Turns out it wasn’t or I had old information.  According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the US Census Bureau:

Colorado job growth in the 1990′s was 44% and the population grew 31%.  Jobs grew faster than the population in terms of percent.  In the 2000′s this switched.  Jobs grew at 3% and the population grew 20%.  Keep in mind that these are percent changes, not absolute numbers.  When you look at the absolute numbers the picture gets even worse.

In the 1990′s Colorado added 670,000 jobs, but the population grew by over 1,000,000 people.  In the 2000′s Colorado only added 58,000 jobs but 870,000 people moved here.  In the 2000′s the state added the fewest number of jobs since the 1930′s.

Denver still has a lower rate of unemployment than the National average, but according to a recent article in the Denver Post, it might take a while for robust hiring to occur.  Sooner or later I should probably get discouraged.  Luckily I’m keeping my spirits up.  I’m slowly realizing that my plan to buy a house in time to take advantage of the tax credit is slipping away.  It looks like I’m not going to be employed before the program ends, and I’m pissing away all my down payment money.  B’ah Hum Bug.