Colorado’s Cash Crisis is Hanging Startups Out to Dry

The engines of Colorado’s job creation have gone silent.

R&D purse strings remain tightly drawn. In 2004, total U.S. R&D expenditures are expected reach $284 billion, a rise of just 1.3% in inflation-adjusted dollars. Of this sum money earmarked for Colorado is notably absent. This is an alarming reality as the state’s economic doldrums show very little sign of recovery, and the startup world, once the most fertile ground for economic recovery, has been placed on life support.

Due to this lack of startup funding Colorado is now in a state of crisis. The jobless rate of 5.7% doesn’t tell the whole story. While the headlines say that 17,500 jobs were lost in 2003, a greater number of higher paying jobs were replaced with lower paying jobs. The net effect is that Colorado now ranks 49th in personal income growth, and 48th in overall economic recovery.

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