Tag: Household Budgets

By Shaina Cole | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice The latest analysis from the Common Sense Institute shows Denver-area households feeling a real financial squeeze, and it’s not just higher prices driving it. The report finds that since 2016, the typical household’s tax and fee load has jumped 48 percent while pre-tax income has grown only 27 percent. Inflation Has Hit Essentials Hardest CSI’s findings line up with what national inflation data has shown over the past few years. Prices climbed fastest from 2021 through 2023. According to the Consumer Price Index, the cumulative increase during that stretch was around 15.7 percent - compared with about 7.8 percent from 2016 to 2020. Families noticed it most in the basics.  Grocery prices jumped as well. In 20...