Paychecks in Boulder County jumped by about 18% in 2019, higher than 354 of the nation’s biggest counties. The region got an 18.5% spike in its average weekly wages during the third quarter of 2019, according to Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages data.

The jump was likely due to to a tech boom, specifically C-Suite windfall from Pfizer’s blockbuster $11 billion acquisition of Array BioPharma.

“I’d say that is a very real underpinning in our Colorado metropolitan economy now is tech companies,” said economist Brian Lewandowski, who heads the Business Research Division at the University of Colorado’s Boulder campus.

“We’re seeing these Fortune 500 companies with some dimension of advanced technology in their work not only setting up shop here but growing here,” said Clif Harald, executive director of the Boulder Economic Council, the economic development wing of the region’s chamber of commerce.

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