{"id":114781,"date":"2026-01-07T23:45:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-07T23:45:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/114781\/"},"modified":"2026-01-07T23:45:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T23:45:08","slug":"houstonians-spend-more-of-their-money-on-transportation-than-residents-of-any-other-major-city-data-show-houston-public-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/114781\/","title":{"rendered":"Houstonians spend more of their money on transportation than residents of any other major city, data show \u2013 Houston Public Media"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\"Houston<\/p>\n

Macie Kelly \/ Houston Public Media <\/p>\n

Houston Skyline as seen from the Waco Street bridge in east Houston. February 4, 2020<\/p>\n

Houstonians spent more of their incomes on transportation than residents in most of the other major urban areas in the country between 2023 and 2024, according to a new report from the federal government<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported residents in the greater Houston area allocated almost 20% of their spending on transportation, nearly 3 percentage points higher than the national average.<\/p>\n

That’s also a higher percentage than any of the other 21 major metropolitan areas measured in the new BLS report, including Los Angeles, Miami and San Francisco.<\/p>\n

Sign up for the Hello, Houston!<\/a> daily newsletter to get local reports like this delivered directly to your inbox.<\/p>\n

RELATED: Car-dominant Texas needs more public transit to meet mobility demands, TxDOT report says<\/a><\/p>\n

Greater Houston residents are also spending marginally more on housing than the average American. Houstonians spent 33.9% of their budget on housing, compared to the nationwide average of 33.2%.<\/p>\n

Dallas-Fort Worth area residents<\/a> similarly spend more of their budget on transportation and housing, though not in such disparate proportions as Houston. In terms of spending on transportation, DFW is second only to Houston.<\/p>\n

“Individuals are moving into the Texas Triangle from other parts of Texas just because that has become a very, very high economic spot over the last 10, 15 years,” said Edward Leps, an economist at BLS. “I mean, it\u2019s always been a very bustling area in terms of economies.”<\/p>\n

RELATED: Report: Texas road funding has saved billions, prevented thousands of deaths<\/a><\/p>\n

Though greater Houston residents are spending marginally higher shares of their incomes on housing, some other major U.S. cities are spending more, like Honolulu (36.9%), New York (38.2%) and Miami (40%).<\/p>\n

Houston residents\u2019 average income during 2023 and 2024 was $105,800, about $2,800 higher than the national average. Yet, Houstonians are spending roughly $7,500 more in expenditures than the average American.<\/p>\n

One other key disparity between Houston and the national average in spending is entertainment. While the average American spent 4.6% of their budget on entertainment, Houstonians dedicated 6.1%.<\/p>\n

In certain categories, though, Houstonians are spending less of their money than the average American. That includes food, healthcare and education.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Macie Kelly \/ Houston Public Media Houston Skyline as seen from the Waco Street bridge in east Houston.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":114782,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[18830,712,918,3222,56,58,57,28416,66,223,19472,27,840,50515],"class_list":["post-114781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-cost-of-living","tag-dallas-fort-worth","tag-economy","tag-housing","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news","tag-houston-residents","tag-local","tag-news","tag-spending","tag-texas","tag-transportation","tag-u-s-bureau-of-labor-statistics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=114781"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114781\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/114782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=114781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=114781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=114781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}