State demographer: Jefferson County population has slowed since 2020 and will age further

Nancy Gideon, Estimates Demographer at the Colorado State Demography Office, told Jefferson County commissioners on Oct. 14 that the county’s population growth has slowed since about 2020 and is shifting toward an older age profile.

Gideon said Colorado’s overall growth is also slowing and that counties along the Front Range, including Jefferson County, have moved from rapid expansion to a more modest outlook. “Colorado has been one of the fastest growing states in the country for a long time, and many of the counties in the front range have been fastest growing as well. But that's changing,” she said.

The nut graf: the demographer’s projected shift matters because fewer births, more deaths and changes in migration alter labor supply, school enrollments, housing demand and local tax bases. Gideon said the state’s forecasts rely on a cohort-component model that aligns labor supply (age structure, births and deaths) with…