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There are any number of reports on the internet saying how much it costs to live in various American cities, and a new one from from travel website Upgraded Points has some sort-of good news for the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area. Dallas-Fort Worth comes in at 26 on its list of large metro areas in terms living “comfortable.” The bad news, based on median income data, is that many people are living in uncomfortable conditions here.
Upgraded Points didn’t define precisely what it meant by comfortably — a PS5, vacation travel? — but instead said it based its list on “the 50/30/20 rule, a well-balanced budget allocates 50% of income to necessities, 30% to discretionary spending, and 20% to savings or debt repayment.” Also, note that DFW is a big place. Housing prices tend to run lower overall in Fort Worth, and vary widely among communities.
Incomes Needed in Dallas-Fort Worth
- One adult: $107,061
- Two adults: $137,978
- Two adults, one child: $184,228
- Two adults, two kids: $220,982
- Two adults, three kids: $264,718
On a positive note, local income figures are not much above average nationwide, Upgraded Points reported, based on data from the Economic Policy Institute’s Family Budget Calculator and the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2024 American Community Survey 1-Year Estimates.
“Nationally, a single adult with no children in 2025 would need $106,745 per year in pretax income to stay within this budget structure. For 2 adults with no children, the threshold rises to a combined $138,643. Costs increase significantly with the addition of children: A 2-parent household would need $194,038 with 1 child, $233,158 with 2, and $278,252 with 3.”
On a less positive note, the report also included information on median household incomes. The median individual household income here was $51,609. The median for families was $113,951.
So, apparently many of us are uncomfortable. But at least half of us already knew that.
Comfortable Living in Texas
Texas as a whole fell into the middle of the pack among states in terms of comfortable affordability, and compared the rest of the state, Dallas-Fort Worth is a pricey place to live. But everybody knows that, too. The numbers for the Lone Star state:
- One adult: $96,506
- Two adults: $125,702
- Two adults, one child: $168,583
- Two adults, two kids: $202,510
- Two adults, three kids: $214,311
For the San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara metropolitan statistical area in California, a single adult needs to earn $163,045 per year to live comfortably, the highest among the nation’s largest metro areas, Upgraded Points found, and three other Cali MSAs claimed the top three spots overall: San Jose, San Francisco, and San Diego, which helps explains the growing number of Californians doing the reverse Dust Bowl trek and relocating to Texas, where they’re finding a warmer welcome than when the path went the other way.
If you want more numbers on how much it costs to live here, typical wages, housing, etc., a quick Google search will return scads of websites offering data. Two of the best are one from MIT, which breaks down typical household expenses, drops the subject “comfortably,” and has substantially lower figures for necessary income, and seems to be more along the “Spartan” lines. The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis is a repository of economic information, including charts that track median income in Dallas-Fort Worth over the years.
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