{"id":204614,"date":"2026-03-14T15:23:06","date_gmt":"2026-03-14T15:23:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/204614\/"},"modified":"2026-03-14T15:23:06","modified_gmt":"2026-03-14T15:23:06","slug":"richest-people-in-dallas-lead-this-weeks-top-stories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/204614\/","title":{"rendered":"Richest people in Dallas lead this week’s top stories"},"content":{"rendered":"

A new happiness study<\/a> has ranked Plano one of the happiest cities in America this year, and it once again landed on top as the happiest city in Texas.<\/p>\n

Plano has moved up on the list and ranks as the 16th happiest U.S. city in 2026. Last year, it was 17th<\/a>. <\/p>\n

WalletHub determined the happiest cities in America based on 29 relevant metrics based on “positive-psychology research” across three main categories: emotional and physical wellbeing, income and employment, and community and environment. As with most WalletHub studies, it compared the 182 most populous U.S. cities. <\/p>\n

Fremont, California claimed the top spot as the happiest city nationwide for another year. Bismark, North Dakota and Scottsdale, Arizona, respectfully, rounded out the top three.<\/p>\n

Here’s how WalletHub ranked Plano across the three key dimensions:<\/p>\n

No. 15 \u2013 Emotional and physical wellbeingNo. 22 \u2013 Community and environmentNo. 72 \u2013 Income and employment<\/p>\n

Plano’s happiness far outshines the rest of North Texas; according to WalletHub, Irving is the 70th happiest city in the country, the third-happiest in Texas, and the second-happiest city in the Dallas-Fort Worth metro. Garland ranked farther behind as No. 92 nationally, and more DFW cities ranked even lower: Grand Prairie (No. 106), Dallas (No. 111), Fort Worth (No. 113), and Arlington (No. 119). <\/p>\n

The report additionally found that Dallasites spend the third-most amount of time at work in the nation. The city ranked No. 180 in the national analysis of U.S. cities with the “fewest work hours.”<\/p>\n

WalletHub also emphasized that money doesn’t buy happiness \u2014 after a certain point. <\/p>\n

“For decades, researchers have explored the science of happiness and identified several core factors, including mental well-being, physical health, strong social ties, job satisfaction, and financial stability,” the report said. “Still, income has its limits \u2014 studies show that earning more than $75,000 a year<\/a> does not lead to greater happiness.”<\/p>\n

Six-figure earners in Plano aren’t necessarily as happy as those who don’t make as much, as a separate financial study from SmartAsset revealed these big earners are only taking home about $72,653<\/a> after taxes and adjusted for the cost of living.<\/p>\n

This is how other Texas cities ranked in the report:<\/p>\n

No. 39 \u2013 AustinNo. 128 \u2013 HoustonNo. 135 \u2013 LubbockNo. 137 \u2013 El PasoNo. 140 \u2013 LaredoNo. 143 \u2013 AmarilloNo. 150 \u2013 BrownsvilleNo. 154 \u2013 San AntonioNo. 155 \u2013 Corpus Christi<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A new happiness study has ranked Plano one of the happiest cities in America this year, and it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":198709,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[102,104,103,76899,427,2638,7959],"class_list":["post-204614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news","tag-easter-brunch","tag-hot-headlines","tag-jerry-jones","tag-most-popular-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204614","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=204614"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204614\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/198709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}