Maybe Texas Isn’t As Affordable As We All Think It Is, New Survey Has Some Interesting Results
I was shocked to see how many Texas cities were on this list and some I had no idea were so expensive to live in.
A new survey conducted by Good Hire was looking to find the most affordable places to live in the country. The rules are simple, the city must have a population over 150,000. So sorry Wichita Falls, we didn't make the cut this time. I would have imagined we would have ranked high on the affordable if we did.
What I was shocked to find, not one Texas city made the top ten for most affordable. Prepare yourselves, Austin, Texas made the cut at 22 for most affordable city in Texas. You're calling bulls*** with me saying that. Here is how they got the score.
- Wage Growth (20% weight)
- Unemployment Rate (10% weight)
- Job Growth (20% weight)
- Percentage of Jobs Open (10% weight)
- Renter Affordability (15% weight)
- Homeowner Affordability (15% weight)
- Real Per Capita Personal Income (10% weight)
Austin got an overall of 66.5. Oklahoma City actually beat out Austin with a score of 69.5 (nice). So Oklahoma, you win this round. Now, let's get into the shocking results of the survey, the least affordable cites. It is no shock that Los Angeles, California is the least affordable city to live in.
However, would you put anywhere in Texas close to Los Angeles? This survey sure did. Los Angeles got a score of 23.5. Corpus Christi, Texas got a score of 26.9, which I can understand, beach city is going to be more expensive to live. However the rest of the bottom ten surprised me when it came to Texas cities.
El Paso got a score of 29.3 and McAllen, Texas got a score of 31.4. Putting both of them in the top ten for least affordable cities to live in the country. Honolulu, HI is more affordable than all those Texas cities according to this survey. Interesting read if you want to check it out with Good Hire.