Data: Housing in Colorado out of reach for low-income workers

Residents need to make $36.44 an hour to rent a fair market rate apartment without spending more than 30% of their income on housing in Colorado.

Public News Service

September 24, 2026

Colorado has tapped federal pandemic dollars and passed legislation to help workers stay housed. But after facing another billion-dollar budget deficit, lawmakers were forced to cut funding for affordable housing development. (Adobe Stock)

By Eric Galatas

Rising rents and a lack of affordable housing in Colorado is putting more of the state’s lowest-paid workers at risk of entering the cycle of homelessness, according to key indicators released by the National Low Income Housing Coalition.

The annual “Out of Reach” report calculates each state’s Housing Wage, the hourly pay workers need to rent a fair market rate apartment without spending more than 30% of their income on housing in Colorado, comparing with other states.

Cathy Alderman, chief communications and public policy officer at the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless, said the wage is now $36.44 an hour in the Centennial State.

“What that means is that people still would have to work about two and a half full-time jobs at minimum wage in order to afford a modest two-bedroom home in Colorado,” Alderman explained.

Colorado’s 2026 minimum wage of $15.16 is 82% higher than it was a decade ago but it has not been able to keep up with rising housing costs. The report ranked Colorado the 12th least affordable state in the country. The most expensive areas include Summit, Eagle and Pitkin counties, Boulder and the Denver metro area.

What’s need to meet the demand for housing in Colorado?

Alderman pointed to a separate report released this spring showing 76% of the state’s lowest-paid workers are forced to spend more than half their income on housing. She argued Colorado needs to add more than 136,000 affordable housing units to meet current demand.

“For the lowest-income households, for every 100 units of housing needed, there are only 27 available. So that leaves three quarters of that population without an available and affordable unit,” Alderman pointed out.

Cost of housing — A crew builds new housing in downtown Denver. (Photo by Quentin Young/Colorado Newsline)

Nationally, the shortage of affordable rental homes has reached 7.2 million units. Congress recently passed legislation to encourage more housing construction. Alderman acknowledged it is a step in the right direction and can make development easier in some spaces and open the door for different kinds of housing options but it will not solve the problem.

“Because what we need more than anything is financial investments in the development of housing that is affordable to the lowest-income households and people living on fixed incomes,” Alderman urged.