Last year, greater Dallas ranked 19th. In the previous two years it had ranked in the top 10. (In line with Census designations, the analysis divided the broader D-FW metro area into two large metros, Dallas-Plano-Irving and Fort Worth-Arlington-Grapevine.) <\/p>\n
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\u201cIt\u2019s still doing well overall,\u201d Brock Smith, a researcher at the Milken Institute who worked on the analysis, said of the Dallas economy. \u201cIt\u2019s got lots of Fortune 500 companies. It\u2019s still in these high-wage sectors.\u201d <\/p>\n
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By signing up, you agree to our\u00a0Terms of Service<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Privacy Policy.<\/a><\/p>\n But in other ways, the analysis showed, Dallas\u2019 economic performance has been lagging, with its ranking dragged down especially by housing affordability and slowing employment growth \u2014 data that raises larger questions, at least, about the region\u2019s longer term trajectory. <\/p>\n \u201cI think it\u2019s still a strong economy,\u201d said Smith, who added that the analysis\u2019 short-term metrics often swing dramatically from year to year. \u201cWe\u2019ll just have to see.\u201d <\/p>\n Key sectors show signs of wear<\/p>\n The report, released in late January, was mostly based on data from 2024, a year when the overall U.S. GDP grew by around 3% and Texas\u2019 GDP grew by around 4%. That year, the country also added more than 2 million jobs, and Texas added 284,000, the highest overall increase of any state. <\/p>\n Yet in the new report, among large metro areas Dallas placed 106th for \u201c2023-2024 job growth\u201d and 113th for \u201c2023-2024 wage growth\u201d \u2014 significantly worse than the metro had fared in those categories a year earlier. In another category, \u201cshort-term job growth,\u201d which included data from July 2024 through July 2025, Dallas ranked 127th. <\/p>\n Part of Dallas\u2019 struggles came from the region\u2019s large trade, transportation and utilities sector \u2014 a broad segment of the economy that includes retail, warehousing and utilities \u2014 which actually shrank compared to a year earlier. <\/p>\n Dallas\u2019 large professional and business services sector, which includes white-collar jobs such as accountants and lawyers, also took a hit, along with its education and health sectors. <\/p>\n \u201cDallas has done really, really well in concentrating in these high-wage sectors, like professional business services, finance, information,\u201d said Smith. \u201cAnd those happen to be the sectors that are doing badly nationally right now.\u201d <\/p>\n Greater Dallas has also clearly become more expensive<\/a>, another factor weighing down its ranking: In the 2025 analysis, Dallas ranked 152nd on housing affordability, and in this year\u2019s analysis it ranked 135th. <\/p>\n \u201cDallas was benefiting, especially in the 2010s, [from] being a strong economy with way better affordability than these coastal big cities that everyone was moving away from,\u201d said Smith. \u201cIt\u2019s still a lot more affordable than some of those cities. But I think that advantage is starting to slip.\u201d <\/p>\n The report also comes as more questions have begun swirling about the broader state of the economy in long-booming Texas and D-FW, which for years has been dramatically transformed by a stream of corporate relocations and a burgeoning new financial sector<\/a>. <\/p>\n Last month, the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas projected that in 2025 Texas saw virtually no overall jobs gain<\/a> \u2014 a major departure from its recent history of around 2% annual net employment growth. <\/p>\n \u201cIt is a big deal for Texas,\u201d Luis Torres, an economist at the bank who authored the analysis, recently told The News. \u201cIt is a low-hiring, low-firing environment.\u201d (The recent downshift has been driven in part by the state\u2019s oil and gas industry, which has been shedding workers amid persistently low prices and geopolitical volatility.) <\/p>\n
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