The Colorado Sun’s Tamara Chuang reports that Colorado did something this state is not supposed to do outside a recession or a pandemic mess: it lost jobs. Revised state labor data shows Colorado shed 11,700 jobs in 2025, while the labor force also shrank. That means fewer people working, fewer people even looking, and a whole lot of glossy talking points suddenly looking like expired campaign mailers.
The piece leans heavily on economists trying to explain that Colorado is not alone, that other states struggled too, and that the national picture was weak across the board. Fair enough. But when your state goes from being a growth magnet to posting its first non-pandemic annual job loss since before 2011, the public is allowed to notice that something smells off in paradise.
Chuang also includes a more pointed observation from economist Gary Horvath, who suggests there may be something specifically wrong in Colorado. He points to unsustainable state spending, a $1.5 billion budget shortfall, a blizzard of legislation under the Gold Dome, and a state government that seems increasingly distracted from the basic job of making Colorado a place where growth can still happen. That is the part the spin doctors would prefer you read quickly and forget.
The Bullet Point Brief
- Colorado lost 11,700 jobs in 2025, according to revised labor data. That is a negative 0.4% growth rate, which is a polite economist way of saying, “Yep, the engine is coughing.”
- The labor force also shrank, and the participation rate dropped to 66.8% in January from 67.6% a year earlier. Translation: more people are either giving up, cashing out, or deciding this economy is not worth the hassle.
- State economists insist this is part of a broader national slowdown. Different clowns, same circus. But that excuse gets real thin when Colorado built its whole brand on being the state that supposedly outperforms everybody else.
- Horvath raises the obvious question: maybe this is not just national uncertainty, maybe Colorado has created its own mess. When government spending runs wild, lawmakers file bills like toddlers with a sugar high, and businesses get buried under regulation, guess what happens next.
- Another economist says Colorado is still top 10 over the long haul and stuck in “slow-growth mode.” That is wonderful for the brochure. Meanwhile, families and employers live in the present tense, not in a scrapbook of what the state looked like before the political class started congratulating itself into decline.
My Bottom Line
This article tries very hard to wrap bad news in soft foam. Yes, the national economy has been shaky. Yes, other states have struggled. But at some point Colorado has to stop pretending it is just an innocent bystander floating through forces beyond its control. Policy matters. Leadership matters. And when a state becomes more expensive, more regulated, more hostile to job creators, and more obsessed with political performance art than economic sanity, decline is not some mysterious weather event. It is man-made.
That is the Jared Polis era in a nutshell. Lots of branding. Lots of moral preening. Lots of elite chest-thumping about being the model for the future. And yet here we are, with fewer jobs, fewer workers, a budget shortfall, and a legislature cranking out hundreds of bills like the answer to every problem is more government in a shinier wrapper. Narrative first, truth if there is room.
Colorado used to be the kind of place people moved to for freedom, opportunity, and a decent shot at building a life. Now it is becoming the kind of place where government treats employers like an ATM, families like an afterthought, and common sense like a relic from some embarrassing rural past. The state is not collapsing in one dramatic moment. It is being slowly regulated, taxed, and virtue-signaled into mediocrity.
And that is what makes this so damn infuriating. This was avoidable. A state blessed with natural beauty, energy resources, entrepreneurial grit, and good people should not be drifting into slow-motion stagnation. But elections have consequences, and so does government by smug progressive hobbyhorse. Will the last person out turn off the lights? At this rate, probably. Thanks, Democrats. You took a great state and treated it like your ideological lab rat. fileciteturn0file0
Source: The Colorado Sun
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