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Report: 40 Percent of Denver Families Struggle to Get By

An Economic Policy Institute report shows that more than 40 percent of people in the Denver area are scraping by economically.

An Economic Policy Institute report shows that more than 40 percent of people in the Denver area are scraping by economically. Shutterstock

With the cost of rent soaring in metro Denver and wages failing to keep pace, more than 40 percent of families are struggling to meet their basic economic needs, according to a report by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), a progressive think tank.

This means, for example, that fast-food workers, earning prevailing Denver wages, would require a 62-hour work week to cover basic living expenses, as calculated by the Colorado Fiscal Policy Institute in another report based on EPI’s figures.

Denver janitors would need to work 51 hours per week to earn a livable income.

The two reports provide a comprehensive look at how much it costs to get by, going beyond poverty rates and other official measures, according to economist Elise Gould, who co-authored the EPI report. The minimum income for one person in Denver to “have a modest but adequate standard of living” is about $29,000, according to the EPI report. It’s about $99,000 for two parents and four children.

“Our family budgets are based on basic needs,” Gould told Rewire. “They don’t include savings. There is no savings for college or retirement, outside of Social Security. There’s no rainy day fund. It’s a modest budget.”

“Those budgets don’t sound like very low-income budgets to most people, yet they are what’s required in lieu of a more expansive safety net,” Gould said, adding that her organization has prepared a similar analysis for Los Angeles.

Ari Armstrong, a Denver-based conservative blogger and commentator, said the EPI research failed to account for several economic factors. He charged that low-wage workers are simply adding to household income, and that they’re often not fully responsible for supporting a family.

“This is a very complicated issue in terms of getting to the root numbers; however upon a quick reading the study in question appears not to be taking into consideration all of the relevant facts,” said Armstrong, who has opposed programs helping low-income families purchase baby diapers. “For example, a fast-food worker may be supplementing family income, instead of being fully responsible for it. Usually people earning an introductory wage are contributing to the family budget, not bearing full responsibility.”

People ages 25-to-54 account for the largest share of fast-food worker jobs in the country, according to the Center for Economic and Policy Research. In states where the minimum wage is lower than $10.10 an hour, such as Colorado, 28 percent of low-wage workers have children.

The EPI report cites the “lack of significant wage growth over the past generation” as the “driving force behind growing inequality, the lack of significant progress in fighting poverty, and the general slowdown in improving living standards.”

“Congressional inaction on policies that might address this stagnation—such as raising the federal minimum wage—have encouraged a substantial number of states and cities to enact higher minimum-wage laws and explore other policies to lift worker pay,” the EPI report states. “These actions, while not eliminating the need for federal actions to lift wages, do help to ensure that regular employment provides the means to achieve a decent quality of life.”

Outside of wage increases, the public sector could provide more public housing, food stamps, expanded tax credits, and other interventions, Gould said.

By this summer, Gould said, EPI will have a tool on its website allowing residents of about 600 metro areas to enter their zip code and see how much it costs to live in their region. The organization has not decided how many detailed analyses, like those for Denver and Los Angeles, will be produced.