Business Confidence: Colorado vs. the Nation
Updated Oct 11
Every quarter since 2003, CU Boulder's Business Research Division asks Colorado's business leaders two questions. How will the nation's economy do? How will Colorado's? For fifteen straight years Colorado won that comparison: 60 sourced readings in a row, 2010 through 2024. We call the gap the Colorado premium. In 2025 it went negative for the first time since 2005, and it has been negative in six of the last seven readings.
You hold a share in a $49.6 billion enterprise. This page tracks whether its own business leaders still back it.
Two totals, two bases. An appropriation is money the legislature authorized to be spent, not money spent. For FY 2026-27, the Long Bill alone appropriates $49,560,763,693 FACT. The Appropriations Report from the Joint Budget Committee staff adds the other bills of the session: $49,694,444,712 FACT.
Both are correct, and we never add them. See both totals, with their sources.
Fifteen years of business confidence
The Leeds Business Confidence Index surveys Colorado business leaders before every quarter, and has since Q2 2003. Until Q2 2009 the same survey ran as the Colorado Business Leaders Confidence Index.
50 is neutral. Above 50 means optimism. Below 50 means pessimism. The charts show 2012 to today. The full quarterly record is in the table below: all 68 readings since 2010, each from an official Leeds report or release, and the 27 earlier readings, Q2 2003 to Q4 2009, in the last section.
LBCI headline index, since 2012 FACT CU Boulder Leeds BRD · dashed line = best fit · sources below
Hover any point for the reading. Red dots mark readings below neutral. The index has now spent 19 of its last 28 readings below neutral, and one more sat at 50.
No span of 28 readings since the index began in 2003 holds more. The highest span that does not overlap this one holds 14 (2005 Q1 to 2011 Q4). The longest unbroken run below neutral was 10 readings, 2007 Q4 to 2010 Q1; the current run is 7 (CALC). The readings before 2012 are in the table below. The dashed best-fit line has sloped −12.9 points per decade on this chart, 2012 Q1 to 2026 Q4 (CALC).
About the source: the Business Research Division has run the index since 2003. It was established in 1915 and is one of the earliest organized state service-oriented bureaus in the country (CU catalog↗).
The division also produces the annual Colorado Business Economic Outlook. The 61st edition came out in December 2025. More than 130 leaders from Colorado's public and private sectors serve on 13 sector estimating groups for it (2026 Outlook↗). The division publishes the Colorado Business Review as well, and the Quarterly Business & Economic Indicators↗ for the Colorado Secretary of State. This page cites that public work and claims no affiliation.
What leaders expect right now, component by component
The survey has six components: separate questions about your own sales, your own profits, the state economy, the national economy, hiring, and capital spending. Each one is scored the same way, and 50 is neutral.
Q4 2026 components FACT 50 = neutral · Leeds BRD / CBR indicators
Every dot sits left of neutral — but the spread is the story. Leaders rate their own sales (45.2) far above the state economy (35.2), and they rate Colorado (35.2) below even the nation (37.1). Leeds notes that the state economy has been the lowest-rated of the six components for six straight quarters. It ranked in the top two for most of the index's history (Q4 2026 report↗).
Leaders rate their own firms above the state they operate in
Colorado's business leaders rate their own industry sales about 10.0 points above the state economy (45.2 vs 35.2), and they rate Colorado below the nation.
No component reaches 50. 50 is neutral on this survey, and not even their own sales get there. They are less pessimistic about themselves, that is all.
The plans question points the same way. Ahead of Q4 2026, 42% of panelists were negative on hiring and 15.1% expected more hiring. On capital spending, 42.9% were negative and 18% expected an increase. Overall, 72% said the risks to their outlook tilt to the downside.
Downtown offices show part of the picture. CBRE put downtown Denver's office vacancy at 40.1% in Q3 2026. It was 38.2% at the end of 2025. Both are more than double the 18.3% U.S. rate CBRE reported for Q2 2026. Downtown Boulder's vacancy was stuck near 29% in mid-2025, and a Boulder Chamber official called that about four times the pre-pandemic average.
Components FACT (Leeds Q4 2026 report↗); own-firm-minus-state gap is our arithmetic CALC. Vacancy FACT: downtown Denver 40.1% in Q3 2026 (CBRE, 9 October 2026↗) and 38.2% in Q4 2025 (Colorado Sun, 22 January 2026↗, citing CBRE); U.S. 18.3% in Q2 2026 (CBRE, 29 July 2026↗; the Q3 2026 U.S. figure is not posted yet, so the quarters differ); Boulder (Colorado Sun, 1 August 2025↗). CBRE counts total vacancy, which includes sublease space, for buildings of 10,000 square feet and larger.
What leaders blamed, era by era FACT open-ended tallies in each report
| Era | Top factors leaders cited, as tallied by Leeds |
|---|---|
| 2018–19 | Tight labor market, housing costs, trade war, national politics — and, in 2019, Colorado oil & gas regulation (SB19-181): the only period in this record where a state policy appears by name in the tallies. The state component dipped below 50 (49.6) in Q3 2019. |
| 2020 | COVID-19 (86% at the trough), lockdowns, the election. |
| 2021 | Vaccines, reopening, pent-up demand — the record-high quarters. |
| 2022–23 | Inflation (60%), interest rates, supply chain — national forces; Colorado's premium hit its record +12.1 during this stretch. |
| 2024 | The election (40% ahead of Q4), interest rates (28%), inflation (15%). |
| 2025–26 | The new administration (36% ahead of Q2 2025), tariffs, uncertainty, then inflation and costs (35% ahead of Q3 2026) and "political and policy instability" (34%). Ahead of Q4 2026: political and government influences (46%), inflation and cost of living (39%), interest rates (31%). The premium turns negative here. |
In Leeds' tallies of reasons for the outlook, leaders name national and federal forces far more often than state policy. The premium chart is where Colorado-specific sentiment shows itself, not the quotes. One new question in Q4 2026 does ask about the state. Asked for Colorado's biggest competitive disadvantage, 41% of panelists named high cost of living and housing and 41% named regulatory burden and governmental challenges. High taxes drew 19%, and an unfavorable political and policy environment 13% (Leeds Q4 2026 report↗).
In their own words FACT public releases & press · quoted verbatim with attribution
The economists who run the survey have said it plainly. Colorado has gone from leading the states to trailing them on several measures.
"Instead of being first like we were over that sustained period of time, we're now last in terms of home price growth." — Brian Lewandowski, Executive Director, Business Research Division, on Colorado's fall from 1st to worst · Colorado Public Radio, Nov 2025↗
"Following the great financial crisis until 2023, Colorado was one of the top-performing state economies. More recently we have moved more to the middle of the pack, perhaps suggesting that we are leading in the slowdown as well." — Richard L. Wobbekind, Senior Economist & Faculty Director, Business Research Division · CU Boulder Today, Dec 2024↗
"This pace of growing jobs has been cut in half in a single year, and this is the slowest pace of growth that we've seen really since the pandemic." — Brian Lewandowski, on U.S. job growth in the first nine months of 2025 · Colorado Public Radio, Nov 2025↗
"We're not used to Colorado's population not growing. And we're not used to people from other parts of the country not coming to Colorado." — Richard L. Wobbekind, on the reversal of Colorado's in-migration engine · The Colorado Sun, Dec 2025↗
We quote these statements from the public record with full attribution. Quoting someone implies no affiliation with them, and no endorsement by them, by the Business Research Division, or by the University of Colorado. The radio interview was edited for length and clarity by the station. Leeds' own Q4 2026 report calls consumer spending a more resilient backdrop than the mood suggests. That is why this page leads with the premium arithmetic and not the mood.
Colorado's rank among the 50 states, 2022 → 2025
Sentiment could be dismissed as mood. Rankings can't: national shocks hit all fifty states, so a collapse in rank is state-specific by construction. From Leeds' own midyear scorecards (1 = best). The 2022 scorecard labels its first column 1-Year, and we use that column. The 2025 scorecard prints one unlabeled column of ranks.
Where the enterprise stands vs. its 49 competitors FACT CBR 2022↗ & 2025↗ midyear updates · 2022 → 2025
Light dot = 2022 rank, dark dot = 2025 rank. Right = best (1st of 50); a slide to the left is a decline. Per-capita income held at 8th in both years, and labor-force participation stayed near the top (2nd → 6th). The decline sits in growth: jobs, wages, home values. The state still ranks high on what it built. It has stopped ranking high on what it builds now.
Two cautions. First, the 2025 issue's own text ranks Colorado 33rd for year-over-year job growth in June 2025, while its scorecard table prints 43rd. The publisher does not say why, so we show the scorecard and flag the gap. Both sit far below 2022's 12th.
Second, the 2026 midyear issue (Volume 94, no. 1↗) no longer prints a rank scorecard, so there is no 2026 scorecard to chart. It gives single ranks in its text: job growth 31st (June 2026) and labor-force participation 9th. It ranks the change in the size of the labor force 46th.
The Q4 2026 quarterly report adds job growth 29th and unemployment rate 27th (August 2026), and per-capita personal income 9th (Q2 2026). Those are separate measures from different reports. They do not extend the chart above.
What happened along the way
This is a state-level story, so the timeline is too. Two forces sit behind Colorado's numbers: state policy, and its capital, Denver. Denver now pulls the whole state's readings down. We note national shocks only where they landed on Colorado. These are notes, not causes. You connect them.
Colorado and Denver events are notes, not causes. In Leeds' open-ended tallies, leaders still name national forces most often. The state-specific signal does not depend on what they name. It is in the premium going negative, the rank collapse, net domestic out-migration, and a downtown office market in the capital that is 40% vacant.
Sources for the notes: SB19-181; FAMLI premiums (CU system, December 2022↗); SB21-260 and the retail delivery fee↗; Prop HH↗; Denver migrant spending (Denver7, 31 January 2024↗, citing city data); the 2024 session (governor's release↗); SB24-205; federal cuts (2026 Outlook↗ and the governor's release↗); migration (State Demography Office, 27 January 2026↗ and the 2026 midyear review↗); packaging EPR program↗. Vacancy sources are in the section above.
Methods, sources, and the quarterly update
The one honest conclusion
What this data proves: Colorado's business leaders have lost more confidence in Colorado than in the nation. The premium held at zero or above for 60 readings in a row, 2010 through 2024. It has been negative in six of the last seven. Between the 2022 and 2025 midyear scorecards the state's growth rankings fell. Employment growth went from 12th to 43rd (the 2025 issue's text says 33rd for one month). Both are sourced facts.
What this data does not prove: a specific cause. Leeds' tallies of reasons for the outlook blame mostly national and federal forces. They name a state policy only in 2019. A new Q4 2026 question about Colorado's disadvantages does name cost of living, regulation and taxes. State costs and the rank collapse line up in time, and that is an association, labeled CALC. We show the federal explanations, such as tariffs and federal job cuts, just as prominently.
You get the ledger. You draw the conclusion.
Every reading, every source
Grades: A is an official Leeds BRD report or release, most of them from the Colorado State Publications Library archive. Q3 2022 and Q4 2022 are quoted from the university's release and from the next report.
B is press coverage published at the time of a release. No reading is grade B today: each one has been re-read against the official report. Component cells marked PENDING were not published in sources we can reach. We never estimate them. Rows marked ·retro carry components that the following quarter's official report quoted after the fact.
The full data table — 68 readings with citations
Earlier readings, Q2 2003 to Q4 2009 — 27 readings with citations
The survey ran as the Colorado Business Leaders Confidence Index until Q2 2009. The same Business Research Division prepared the analysis, and the Leeds name starts with Q3 2009. Each row is the figure printed in that quarter's own report. The 2006 Q3 reading was later restated to 53.8, with national 43.5. The premium is state minus national, our arithmetic CALC. These rows feed the span and run counts above and the premium's last negative reading, and nothing else on this page.
The quarterly update playbook
| When | Leeds has published within about a week of each quarter's start (the last four: 6 Jan, 31 Mar, 1 Jul and 1 Oct 2026). Check the BRD release page and cbrlei.colorado.edu. |
| What | Add one row to the LEDGER object in this page's source: quarter, headline, state & national components, source URL, grade. Every tile, chart, and computed figure on this page re-renders from it — stored once, computed once, read everywhere. |
| Then | Each midyear, refresh the rank dumbbells if the new Colorado Business Review prints a rank scorecard (the 2026 issue did not), and add one timeline row. The page's verdict — premium positive or negative — updates itself. |