Exploring a Colorado Cash Dividend
Building a future where every Coloradan has an economic floor.
Why a cash dividend for Colorado?
Between February and June 2025, the Denver Basic Income Project led an exploration into what a statewide cash payment could look like in Colorado. Partnering with researchers, advocates, and the public, we examined:
Who should receive a dividend
How to sustainably fund it
What Coloradans think about the idea
Who could benefit?
Our modeling looked at three possible approaches:
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Prioritize Children
A lifetime cash benefit of $1,200 per year that begins at birth for every newborn Coloradan presents an impactful entry point and a logical approach to scaling up to the larger population. 62,000 babies would kick off the program in year 1 at a cost of $74,000,000. By the tenth year, 639,000 children, a little over 10% of the state’s population, would be enrolled in the program at a cost of $767M per year.
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Target Poverty
Colorado spends nearly $3 billion in federal and state funds to support households in poverty. With nearly half of Colorado households earning less than median income (~$100K/year), an income-based approach is another possible way to help those most in need as early as possible.
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Launch Locally
Rather than launch a program statewide, we also looked at starting up on a county-by-county basis, prioritizing low income counties first. Providing the highest dividend of $6,000 per year to children 0-5 for the lowest income counties and scaling up to medium level counties would benefit 45,000 children by the 10 year at a cost of $276M.
Funding a Permanent Dividend
We partnered with the Colorado Fiscal Institute to map out practical ways Colorado could fund a permanent fund. As digital services and AI reshape our economy, the memo outlines policy options that either tax wealth or bring currently untaxed parts of the economy into the mix. With a short start-up period to let the fund grow and earn investment income, Colorado could sustain a fund backed by up to $300 million a year.
We grouped the revenue ideas into three buckets: sales and service taxes, digital and data economy taxes, and taxes on wealth. Below are the leading options in each bucket that could reliably support a permanent fund:
Expanding sales tax to services (+$194M annually)
Taxing digital advertising (+$200M annually)
A tax on the sale of personal data (+$28M–$200M annually)
A 1% tax on capital gains for millionaires (+$300M annually)
A state Net Investment Income Tax (+$360M annually)
What does the public think?
Those two analyses led to our final step: polling the 2026 Colorado electorate. From July 8–12, we surveyed 800 voters to get a read on attitudes right after HR 1 passed. Here are the highlights:
Voters have clear preferences for a high payment that is means-tested and directed to those living in poverty.
Taxing wealth rises to the top of voters’ preferred revenue streams, but voters are also very interested in taxes on the emerging data economy.
Concerns about job displacement from Artificial Intelligence are significant, not enough to drive support for a cash benefit in this moment, but...
There is a STRONG preference to regulations on Artificial Intelligence in Colorado that compensate consumers for use of their data.
Voters show a clear preference for the program to be administered outside of state government, preferring a non-governmental entity akin to Alaska’s Permanent Fund.
What’s Ahead for Colorado
This exploration shows there’s a real path forward for a Colorado Cash Dividend. But more work lies ahead:
Continued public education about the need for an economic floor
Engaging Coloradans on funding options
Building a coalition to support future legislation