A salary of $100,000 goes further in Houston than in New York, San Francisco or Austin
If you live in Houston and earn a salary of $100,000, you’re doing pretty well, financially speaking.
Or, at least, you can afford a more luxurious lifestyle than you would in most major American cities, according to a new analysis by SmartAsset, a website dedicated to consumer-focused financial information.
After federal and local taxes, the analysis found that a Houstonian earning $100,000 takes home $74,515. Because Houston’s cost of living is only 91.8 percent of the national average, those earnings are worth $81,350, placing Houston sixth on the list of major cities where $100,000 goes the furthest.
Memphis, Tennessee ranks first on the list: A salary of $100,000 is worth $86,444 in Grind City. Texas cities, however, dominate the top 10, with El Paso in second place, Corpus Christi in fourth, Lubbock in fifth, Houston in sixth, and San Antonio, Fort Worth and Arlington in seventh.
This is largely because Texas has no state income tax and its major cities tend to have low costs of living compared to New York, San Francisco or San Diego.
In New York City, SmartAsset found, $100,000 is worth just $35,791 after deducting taxes and adjusting the cost of living. Ouch.
Los Angeles, Boston, Seattle, and Washington, DC are also among the cities where take-home pay is cheaper.
The only major Texas city that didn’t make the top 10 in SmartAsset’s analysis, which looked at the 76 largest US cities, was Austin. It came in 24th place, with $100,000 being worth $73,777 after adjusting for cost of living.
Note, though: SmartAsset’s analysis ignores property taxes, a source of anguish, as well as financial strain, for many Texans.
The analysis, SmartAsset explains, was inspired by a recent survey that found that more than half of Americans earning six figures said they lived from paycheck to paycheck, even though $100,000 is a relatively high salary. The median household income in the United States is about $71,000 a year, according to the Census Bureau.
