HOUSTON \u2014 A newly released financial study looked at what it takes to live comfortably in major cities around the country, ranking the top 100 places, which\u00a0included major Texas cities from Dallas to Houston.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe cost of living is starting to get outrageous right now, especially being born and raised in Houston. To see the prices skylimit to where it is now, it\u2019s kind of unfathomable,\u201d said Marvin Wilson, a Houston native.<\/p>\n
Inflation and rising costs are driving up the cost of living in Houston.<\/p>\n
\u201cComparatively, I feel like Houston is a lot cheaper that like Seattle where I\u2019m originally from,\u201d said Kevin Lei, a Rice University student.<\/p>\n
Saskia De Jong and Marten Hogeweg were visiting from California and shared Lei\u2019s sentiment, saying young people can no longer afford to enter the housing market.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe rental market is strong, of course, but young people pay as much rent as they would pay in mortgage,\u201d said Hogeweg.<\/p>\n
A recent SmartAsset study ranked the top 100 U.S. cities by the highest to the lowest salaries needed to live comfortably, based on\u00a0the 50-30-20 rule. The rule is that after taxes, 50% of your income should go toward needs, 30% to wants and 20% for savings. Rice University economist John Diamond said that is not always feasible.<\/p>\n
\u201cHalf the people in this country can\u2019t even save $400 for an emergency fund, much less 20% of their income in their year, so is it a great goal to shoot for? Absolutely,\u201d Diamond said.<\/p>\n
Based on the study, New York City requires the highest individual salary of about $159,000. In Texas, the cities of Frisco, McKinney and Plano all ranked at 29, with a\u00a0salary of just over $109,000.\u00a0Several other Texas cities made the top 100, but the incomes fall well below a comfortable salary.<\/p>\n
The study shows a single adult in Houston requires nearly $90,000 to live comfortably. In Irving, you would need about $97,000.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But why the high cost of living in North Texas cities like Frisco?<\/p>\n
\u201cThe cause is growth,\u201d said Diamond. \u201cHeadquarters have made their corporations flowing in. There\u2019s relatively nice housing. You\u2019ve got A+ rated schools. Everybody wants to move there, and that pushes prices way up.\u201d<\/p>\n
So where is this total cost-of-living situation headed?<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is gonna depend, can the Fed get inflation under control and keep it under control,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Also, what will incomes look like?<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s gonna depend on AI,\u201d Diamond said. \u201cDoes AI make us more productive and we earn more money, or does it take our jobs and we earn less money?\u201d<\/p>\n
Wilson said businesses and corporations should be part of the solution.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody needs to start paying more, just to make sure everybody has enough just to start living comfortably,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HOUSTON \u2014 A newly released financial study looked at what it takes to live comfortably in major cities…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":283096,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[13732,132,1570,102,138,3222,56,58,57,223,82,27,1569,15717,835],"class_list":["post-283095","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-app-housing","tag-austin","tag-ctv","tag-dallas","tag-el-paso","tag-housing","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news","tag-news","tag-san-antonio","tag-texas","tag-texas-what-you-need-to-know","tag-valencia-jones","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283095","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=283095"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283095\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/283096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=283095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=283095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=283095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}