Economic Opportunity

The General Assembly opened its 69th session on Wednesday, a mostly ceremonial day that featured speeches from the majority and minority leaders outlining their broad goals and policy objectives for the 120-day session.

On Jan. 1, Colorado and nine other states will increase their minimum wage, providing a boost in income for nearly 1 million low-wage workers.

In Colorado, the 14¢ increase, to $7.78 per hour, will benefit 66,000 workers, according to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI). For employees who work full time, the increase means an additional $300 for the year.

Expanding opportunity in Colorado

The Bell believes Colorado should be a state of opportunity – a place where people can build better lives and recapture the American dream. That belief guides our research and analysis and helps us develop recommendations for public policy. Here is a partial list of recent reports and other work aimed at informing and engaging Coloradans – and increasing opportunity. All of our publications are available at www.bellpolicy.org. Specific links are provided below.

VALLEY – On November 14, The Bell Policy Center aired ‘Colorado: Boom or Bust', a TV special showing the past, present and future of Colorado. The television special, produced with Colorado Public Television and ProgressNow Colorado, provides history about the state and some of the fiscal challenges that Coloradans face with the goal being to start a conversation about the state's future.

Colorado: Boom or Bust, our television special, is now available on our website – the whole show and its various segments, along with supplementary informational graphics.

The show explores our state's financial condition in everyday language, in the same way a family would talk about its budget around the dining room table. That's the goal of the show – to get a family-style conversation going about Colorado and the investments we make in our state.

By Wade Buchanan
Guest columnist

Backpackers have a saying: Leave it better than you found it.

For generations, Coloradans have done exactly that. Ranchers and farmers, rural residents and city dwellers, businesses large and small, they all dreamed big and invested in themselves and their children's future – in our future.

They built schools, they built colleges, they built hospitals, they built roads through the mountains, they built dams, they irrigated fields, they built parks, they built cities.

They built a great state.