Work Perks

How much salary Texans would willingly forfeit to continue working from home

Employees prefer the kitchen table to the boardroom.

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For some, working from home is starting to look like the new normal. But whether your office is gearing up for reopening or you're looking at taking calls from your couch for the foreseeable future, one thing is for sure: Texans love that WFH life.

Finance website RealBusinessSavings.com recently surveyed 3,500 American employees to evaluate their attitudes about offices in the current circumstances, and the results showed an overwhelming preference for our makeshift home desks.

The average American employee would take a $316 pay cut per month in order to continue working from home after lockdown, with Texans specifically willing to give up $278 each month to avoid going back to their place of work.

Nationally, 57 percent of employees say they will request to continue working from home to avoid contracting coronavirus in the workplace. One in 10 are happy to be far away from office politics, and two in three say they have been more productive working from home.

When it comes to reasons people prefer to continue working from home, 30 percent of employees say saving money on transportation is the best thing, followed by no daily commute (28 percent). An additional 22 percent say the best part is saving money on lunch and afterwork drinks, while 8 percent said their favorite part is not having to wear business attire (hooray for yoga pants!).

Broken down across the country, it appears Californians are most keen on keeping their WFH routines after lockdown, as the average employee there would forfeit $495 of their salary in order to continue to do so. Comparatively, Hawaii employees are ready to go back to the office, with the average respondent there forfeiting only $71 of their salary each month in order to continue working from home.

And if we ever do return en masse to the boardroom, it seems the days of high-fives and handshakes with your coworkers are over. Results say that 75 percent of employees do not think handshakes will ever return to the work environment, and in their place should be the elbow tap (65 percent), a simple nod (28 percent), the balance-testing foot tap (5 percent), and the formal bow (a mere 2 percent).

Perhaps most telling is this result: One in three workers say that since WFH began, they have felt their bosses have been friendlier and with a more relaxed attitude toward employees. Long live the Zoom meetings!

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Money Matters

This is the salary you need to live comfortably in Texas in 2026

Photo by Alexander Mils on Unsplash

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A new national report looking at the income it takes to live comfortably in each of the 50 states has revealed Texans need to earn slightly less now than a year ago.

SmartAsset analyzed what a single individual, as well as family of four, must earn to cover minimum basic needs adjusted using the 50/30/20 budgeting rule. The resulting estimate represents the annual, pre-tax income needed to live comfortably in every U.S. state.

A single, full-time worker needs to make $90,563 to live comfortably in the Lone Star State, the report found, which is down a meager 0.2 percent from last year ($90,771).

Under the 50/30/20 budgeting strategy, that means a single Texas earner would have $45,282 to spend on necessities like housing and utilities, $27,169 for discretionary spending, and $18,113 for emergencies or retirement savings.

Texas ranked 34th nationally in SmartAsset's list of states with the highest income needed for a single adult to live "in sustainable comfort" in 2026. Only five other states — Tennessee, Maryland, Louisiana, North Carolina, and Mississippi — saw a decline in the income needed to live comfortably this year.

For a family of four to live comfortably in Texas, income requirements change significantly, according to the findings. To support a two-child household, a family needs $203,424 in combined total household income to be considered financially stable. This is down slightly from 2025, when SmartAsset reported a family of four in needed $204,922 to live comfortably in Texas.

This is a comfortable lifestyle for a family of four in Texas, according to the report:

$101,712 dedicated to necessities and living expenses
$61,027 dedicated to discretionary spending
$40,685 dedicated to emergencies, savings, or debt repaymen

According to the report, a family of four now needs to make at least $200,000 to live comfortably in 40 U.S. states, a figure that is far out of reach for many American families.

"As housing, grocery, transportation and other essential costs pressure household budgets, earning a six-figure salary no longer guarantees financial comfort in much of the U.S.," the report said. "A single adult now needs at least $80,000 a year to live comfortably in every state, while the threshold exceeds $100,000 in nearly half of states. For a family of four, the income needed to live comfortably is as much as $329,000."

Still, earning the minimum income to live comfortably in Texas doesn't guarantee financial stability in the Lone Star State's major cities. Earlier this year, SmartAsset determined single residents in Dallas need to make nearly $97,000 to qualify as financially stable, while families of four need about $214,500.

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