Colorado Springs sales tax revenues rose again last month as construction industry purchases remained strong and consumers ramped up spending heading into the holiday shopping season.
The increase was a hopeful sign for the local economy.
The Springs has continued to see newcomers who are moving to the area, said Tatiana Bailey, director of the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs Economic Forum. Some economic sectors also have remained relatively healthy; the pace of home construction, for example, is at a 15-year high and the city collects millions of sales tax dollars each year on the purchase of building materials.
Defense contractors and professional and technical firms, meanwhile, are among employers without large-scale layoffs and that have been able to accommodate staffers working from home, Bailey said.
While the local inflation rate slowed to 2.3% in 2019 from 2.8% in 2018, it was exceeded only by Greeley’s 2.6% inflation rate among those metro areas, according to data the agency released this week. Colorado Springs’ inflation rate was slightly ahead of the statewide rate of 2.2% and well ahead of the national rate of 1.5%, though prices in Colorado Springs still remain slightly below the national average.
Nearly all of the reason for the inflation was housing costs, which increased at 2.9% and were 11.4% above the national average, the agency found. Other goods and services increased slightly. Prices in Colorado Springs were 99.3% of the national average last year, the closest they have been to the average since 2015. Prices in Boulder, Denver and Fort Collins were all above the national average in 2019.