Kyla Pearce reports for The Denver Gazette that Colorado’s affordability problem has moved well beyond grumbling at the grocery store. According to the Colorado Health Foundation’s 2026 Pulse Poll, 76% of Coloradans worry they will not be able to afford living here in the future. Last year, that number was 70%. That is not a blip. That is the dashboard light blinking red while the people in charge insist the engine is just expressing itself.
The poll surveyed 2,240 Colorado adults by phone and online between March 14 and April 9. The findings show people delaying medical and dental care, cutting back on recreation, reducing charitable giving, and taking on debt. In other words, regular Coloradans are making the kind of decisions politicians describe as “difficult choices” right before spending your money on another branded initiative with a logo and a lunch buffet.
The Bullet Point Brief
- Seventy-six percent of respondents said they worry they will not be able to afford living in Colorado in the future. When three-quarters of the state is nervous about staying, that is not a “vibe.” That is an indictment with a mountain backdrop.
- Nearly half of those polled said they postponed or delayed medical or dental care in the last year. Colorado: where the ruling class talks endlessly about health equity while actual people decide whether that molar can hang on until tax refund season.
- Thirty-two percent said they worry about losing their home because they cannot afford rent or a mortgage. Housing costs were especially serious for younger respondents, with 90% of Gen Z and 94% of millennials calling them a serious concern. Turns out, “just build your future here” is a tougher pitch when the future comes with a payment plan and altitude sickness.
- Seventy-three percent cut back on recreation and entertainment spending, and 55% reduced charitable giving. That means people are not just trimming luxury. They are cutting pieces of normal life. Less fun, less community support, more survival math. Very inspirational. Someone in Denver should put it on a banner.
- Respondents listed government and politics as their top concern, with cost of living second. That pairing is not accidental. People can smell the connection between political theater and daily expense, even if the professional excuse factory keeps pretending those two things have never met.
My Bottom Line
Normal Coloradans are not being dramatic. They are being squeezed from every side, then lectured by the same Denver and Boulder policy priesthood that helped turn daily life into a subscription service with mountains. If 76% of residents are worried they cannot afford to stay in Colorado, maybe the problem is not your budgeting app, Karen. Maybe the state got expensive by design, by neglect, and by a governing class addicted to moral branding.
This is the giant flashing dashboard light the ruling class keeps pretending is decorative. People are delaying health and dental care. They are skipping recreation. They are giving less to charity. They are taking on debt. Meanwhile, the professional compassion industry keeps cutting ribbons, issuing reports, inventing programs, and congratulating itself for caring so deeply that nobody can afford the caring.
The broader pattern is hard to miss. Colorado keeps layering on expensive systems, mandates, fees, housing restraints, energy schemes, transportation dreams, health care complexities, and bureaucratic obstacle courses, then acts shocked when regular families cannot keep up. Every cost gets defended as necessary. Every burden is someone else’s fault. Every failure needs another task force. These people could make a peanut butter sandwich require a permitting consultant.
Seventy-six percent is not a messaging problem. It is not a communications challenge. It is not a chance for another glossy “listening tour.” It is the majority report from a state pricing out its own residents while elites clap for themselves in rooms full of catered sandwiches. Colorado does not need another sermon from the people who made life unaffordable. It needs them to stop pretending the invoice is compassion.
Source: The Denver Gazette
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