Population Up, Economy Down

While the Denver metro area population continues to surge with streets, restaurants and parks full of new residents, especially Millennials, the sales tax measure of metro area retail continues to sag.

After several years of 5 percent or higher growth (7% in 2013), the year-to-year- comparison of the first three months of sales tax collections in the metro area was down a fraction (.0005% decrease in YTD 2016 over YTD 2015). Each one percent of sales tax in the Denver metro area provides about $550 million in sales tax revenue for state and local governments.