inflation rate

On January 1, 74,000 low-wage workers in Colorado will get a 3.8 percent raise when the state's minimum wage goes up by 28¢ to $7.64 per hour. For employees who work full-time all year, this amounts to $582 more per year.

Voters approved Amendment 42 to Colorado's constitution in 2006, raising the minimum wage and requiring that the wage to be adjusted each year by the rate of inflation in Colorado. Inflation increased by 3.8 percent between July 2010 and June 2011, according to the Boulder-Denver-Greeley Consumer Price Index.

Colorado's minimum wage will increase by 12¢ next year, rising to $7.36, and that's good news not just for hard-working Coloradans but the rest of the state as well.

A calculation based on this year's inflation rate, an update of a formula approved by voters in 2006, is the reason for the wage increase, but the impact goes far beyond number-crunching. Workers and families in every community of the state will feel the benefits of this small but important change.

By Dan Frosch
The New York Times

DENVER – When Coloradoans voted to tie the state's minimum wage to inflation, they were trying to make sure low-wage workers did not fall too far behind the cost of living. But their vote has had an unintended consequence: Colorado plans to lower its minimum wage next year because of falling inflation rates, becoming the first state in the nation do so.

For immediate release
Colorado minimum wage likely to drop
under new inflation rate

Groups that helped pass Amendment 42
comment on possible change in pay for workers

The Denver Post

Collapsing energy and transportation prices quenched inflation in the metro area in the first half of 2009, according to a report Friday from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The consumer price index for Denver-Boulder-Greeley decreased 0.6 percent between the first half of 2008 and the first half of 2009.

Inflation ran at a hot 3.9 percent rate last year.