Colorado was recently ranked 3^rd among US state economies by Business Insider. You can see the full report here. This is not too surprising since Business Insider also ranked CO as being the fastest growing state economy last year. A large part of the methodology of the new ranking, Business Insider was looking at factors such as GDP per capita, unemployment rate, weekly wages, and state government budget situation.

Naturally, all of these individual factors are significantly affected by the state of the energy market, especially for states like Colorado with significant oil and gas exploration and development. It’s interesting to note that North Dakota came in at #1 on this list and Texas at #2, two states that also have substantial energy-based economies. With the recent drop in oil prices and reduction in related jobs, it will be interesting to see how this impacts Colorado’s economy. We already discussed in a previous post about how the lower gas prices have increased hiring and business overall in other sectors of the economy.

So far, it has been reported that Colorado has not been significantly impacted by the drop in oil prices yet, at least as far as the recent data is able to show. However, this will not likely remain the case. It was reported that half of Colorado’s drilling rigs have not been in operation for months. Growth and other economic projections for the state’s future are not as bright as they once were. This is expected to increase unemployment, reduce GDP, and also reduce state tax revenues too.

Colorado does have a diversified economy, certainly much more so than say, North Dakota, and the state is expected to weather the storm in the energy market better than other areas, with continued growth and low unemployment rates continuing, just perhaps not quite as strong, into the future. After all, business confidence here in Colorado is still continuing to rise. Colorado is and will continue to be a top state for businesses both big and small.

If you have questions about legal matters for your business, don’t hesitate to reach out to the Law Office of E.C. Lewis, PC, home of your Denver Business Attorney, Elizabeth Lewis, at 720-258-6647 or email her at elizabeth.lewis@eclewis.com.