As is custom, this 12 months’s Western Colorado Financial Summit featured a neighborhood, statewide and nationwide financial outlook presentation from Colorado Mesa College Economics Professor Nathan Perry.
On the summit held by the Grand Junction Financial Partnership and attended by a whole bunch at CMU on Thursday, Perry went over the state of the financial system, and it wasn’t overly optimistic.
Colorado Mesa College Economics Professor Nathan Perry speaks to crowd members whereas giving a presentation on “uncovering regional information tendencies and implications” in the course of the Western Colorado Financial Summit within the CMU college middle ballroom on April 23, 2026.
WESTERN SLOPE
On the native degree, Perry went over a desk of inhabitants estimates for Western Slope counties. Mesa County, with a 2025 inhabitants of 162,592, is projected to develop to 194,895 individuals in 2060, a decline from earlier forecasts that had the county hitting 220,000 individuals by 2050. Moreover, Montrose County was speculated to develop to 60,000 individuals by 2050, however now, the 45,102-person county is anticipated to develop to solely 52,641 by 2060.
“This can be a gigantic discount in inhabitants forecast,” Perry mentioned.
One county wholesome progress, per the forecast, is Garfield County, at present anticipated to develop from 63,220 individuals in 2025 to 87,824 in 2060. It’s the solely Western Slope county anticipated to develop so considerably.
“Western Garfield is having a ton of youngsters,” Perry mentioned. “Should be the water. Perhaps persons are extra enticing in western Garfield, I don’t know.”
The Mesa County median family revenue grew from $66,339 in 2023 to $73,997 in 2024, the latest 12 months of full information. The county’s poverty price additionally fell from 11.9% in 2023 to 10.3% in 2024. County employment grew barely to 76,842 in 2025, an addition of just below 300 staff over 2024. Jobs elevated from, 79,841 in 2023 to 81,359 in 2024, with these figures counting individually these within the county working two jobs to make ends meet.
Perry went on to say that, if the nationwide financial system entered a recession, Mesa County exists inside circumstances that might stabilize the native financial system, such because the energy of well being care employment.
Colorado Mesa College Economics Professor Nathan Perry reads a slide about job openings and losses whereas giving a presentation on “uncovering regional information tendencies and implications” in the course of the Western Colorado Financial Summit within the CMU college middle ballroom on April 23, 2026.
COLORADO
Perry went over an financial overview of Colorado, with the next takeaways:
Colorado was a top-five financial system within the U.S. from 2009 to 2024 however is now “center of the pack.” Projected job progress this 12 months is 0.6%, which might be the slowest for a non-recession 12 months on report;
Colorado’s inhabitants handed 6 million in 2025 however solely grew 0.4%, the slowest price since 1989. Home migration went detrimental for the primary time since 2004, with extra individuals leaving for different states than arriving;
Worldwide migration collapsed from round 50,000 arrivals in 2023-2024 to about 15,000 in 2025;
The state is going through a $1.5 billion funds shortfall with no TABOR (Taxpayer Invoice of Rights) refunds this 12 months, with Western Slope and mountain municipalities most uncovered to fiscal stress;
The housing market has reset with a 2.2% decline in costs year-over-year, stock rising and a resilient single-family house market, however condos and townhomes aren’t doing effectively;
The oil and gasoline business is a story of two states. Weld County had 507 effectively begins in 2024 whereas Mesa, Garfield and Rio Blanco counties mixed for fewer than 120;
Colorado has about 57,000 federal staff, and the state noticed roughly 24,000 federal job cuts previously 12 months, concentrated in businesses with important Western Slope footprints.
Colorado Mesa College Economics Professor Nathan Perry speaks to crowd members whereas giving a presentation on “uncovering regional information tendencies and implications” in the course of the Western Colorado Financial Summit within the CMU college middle ballroom on April 23, 2026.
NATIONAL
Themes of the nationwide financial system, Perry mentioned, embrace a softening labor market, oil and gasoline uncertainty, rising inflation, tariff impacts and uncertainty, and the key macro and generational downside of housing.
Non-farm payrolls hit a detrimental determine in 2025 and stay low this 12 months. Perry known as this deceleration of non-farm payrolls a possible recession indicator.
Perry then went over a graph displaying Job Openings and Quits (JOLTS), which measures hirings, firings and quits.
”If the give up price is basically excessive, it implies that staff really feel actually snug they will get a job. The give up price is falling and the job openings are falling,” Perry mentioned.
“Quits are getting worse, hirings are getting worse, and firings are holding pretty regular. The JOLTS information exhibits very a lot how the stagnant labor market is slowly getting worse. We’re not getting fired so much, however we’re not getting employed, and persons are afraid to give up. We’re one financial situation from that breaking, after which it will get unhealthy.”
The nationwide GDP (Gross Home Product) elevated by 1.6% within the first quarter of 2026 after a 0.5% improve within the fourth quarter of 2025. Each of those quarters signify sharp declines from the second (3.8%) and third (4.4%) quarters of 2025. Perry mentioned this exhibits the GDP is catching up with the labor market, therefore the slowing down.
One other driver right here, Perry mentioned, is synthetic intelligence (AI) funding not yielding anticipated outcomes.
“There’s lots of chatter about lots of this AI funding not turning out the best way the businesses need, so there’s issues we’re not going to get a return on all the massive funding {dollars},” Perry mentioned.
Perry mentioned that tariffs haven’t been as inflationary as some projected as a result of the monetary market determined it “simply doesn’t care anymore” about tariff uncertainty, although he famous small companies nonetheless care due to the impacts they’re going through. Of notice, the U.S. Supreme Courtroom in February dominated towards President Donald Trump’s use of nationwide emergency powers to justify sweeping tariffs.
”I feel firms are nonetheless ready to see in the event that they’re even going to need to pay them,” Perry mentioned.
Inflation, Perry mentioned, is at 3.3%, a progress of about 0.5% for the reason that begin of the conflict in Iran, attributed to an increase in gasoline costs.
Perry believes the Federal Reserve want to convey rates of interest all the way down to about 2%, however Perry doesn’t imagine it’ll ever get to that time, predicting that the Fed would land just below 3% at greatest.
He additionally went over oil and gasoline costs, evaluating the uncertainty to the trendy prevalence of playing.
“You understand there’s all these playing apps, and I simply really feel like we’re all playing on one thing as of late,” Perry mentioned. “I inform my college students on a regular basis, ‘What are you doing in your telephone? Why aren’t you listening to my superb lecture?’ They’re like, ‘I’m sorry,’ then their pal says, ‘They’re playing on the Nuggets.’ I am going, ‘What? There’s playing in your telephone?’ This child was like, ‘No matter, Perry. You’re at all times playing on pure gasoline futures,’ and I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh! He’s proper! It’s the identical factor!’”
