Stretching your salary

Workers get big bang for their salary buck in Dallas and Fort Worth

Woman working and drawing at desk with computer

The study examined used the average annual salary for 127 white-collar “business” jobs.

It truly pays to live and work in Dallas or Fort Worth. A new ranking from BusinessStudent.com puts the two cities — and Houston, too — among the top 10 places in the U.S. for stretching your salary.

To come up with its ranking, BusinessStudent.com examined the average annual salary for 127 white-collar “business” jobs listed on career website Indeed — such as HR director, marketing manager, and IT manager — and subtracted the average rent for a two-bedroom apartment, based on data from apartment search website Rent Jungle. According to that measure, Dallas is No. 4, Houston is No. 7, and Fort Worth is No. 9.

In all, BusinessStudent.com sifted through data for 65 major U.S. markets.

“When deciding where to work and live, it is critical to look at more than just what salary you can make,” BusinessStudent.com says. “Because if rents are sky high, you may net out at zero, or even worse with mounting credit card debt.”

The BusinessStudent.com study calculated an average yearly salary of $82,609 in Dallas and average monthly rent of $1,422 for a two-bedroom apartment. That resulted in a difference of $65,545, behind Palo Alto and San Jose, both in Northern California, and Detroit.

In Big D, at least, all types of workers are benefiting from stable rent growth. According to apartment search website Apartment List, the growth of rent for a two-bedroom apartment in Dallas has been flat of late, while it’s gone up 3.6 percent in Houston over the past year, 0.8 percent in Austin, 0.4 percent in San Antonio, and 1.8 percent statewide.

“Dallas is still more affordable than most other large cities across the country,” Apartment List says.

For Fort Worth, the average yearly salary for a white-collar job added up to $75,797, according to BusinessStudent.com, with average monthly rent of $1,108 for a two-bedroom apartment. That left a gap of $62,501.

In Houston, BusinessStudent.com computed an average yearly salary of and an average monthly rent of $79,579 for a two-bedroom apartment. The difference: $62,767.

Aside from Dallas, Fort Worth and Houston, Irving (No. 12) and Plano (No. 19) showed up in BusinessStudent.com’s top 25.

In Irving, BusinessStudent.com discovered the average yearly salary was $77,527, with average monthly rent of $1,327 for a two-bedroom apartment. The difference was $61,603.

Plano had an average yearly salary of $75,988, with average monthly rent of $1,350 for a two-bedroom apartment. The gap: $59,788.

At the other end of the spectrum, College Station ranked No. 1 in the country for the lowest after-rent salary. There, the average yearly salary for a white-collar job was calculated at $55,086, with average monthly rent of $906 for a two-bedroom apartment. The leftover amount: $44,214.

San Antonio was the only other Texas city in the bottom 25. In the Alamo City, the average yearly salary was computed as $67,195, with average monthly rent of $1,195 for a two-bedroom apartment. The difference: $52,855. That put San Antonio at No. 12 among the bottom 25.

lists rankings

SAFE SPACE

5 Dallas neighbors dominate 2026 list of safest cities in Texas

Facebook/TrophyClubPublicSafety

Who wouldn't feel safe in Trophy Club with this guy around?

A new report says the Dallas suburbs are home to some of the safest cities in Texas. Home security review site SafeWise has ranked Trophy Club, Parker, Melissa, Murphy, and Colleyville on its recent top-10 list of towns unburdened by crime worries.

Trophy Club bests every other city, topping the charts at No. 1. Parker follows right behind at No. 2, Melissa is No. 4, Murphy ranks No. 7, and Colleyville comes in at No. 9.

For its 2026 report, SafeWise factored in FBI-reported property and violent crime data for 343 cities, then adjusted it for population to fairly compare metros to rural and suburban towns. (Data for the Texas cities can be found here.)

Although the rankings do provide a snapshot, the site says “a number of factors, including local agency reporting practices, community resources, prevention efforts, and lived experience all influence how safe a place is (or is perceived to be).”

North Texas cities have tended to do well in "safe city" surveys in recent years. Arlington and Fort Worth scored top-10 spots on a ranking of America's safest large cities last fall. SmartAsset ranked Frisco and McKinney among the nation's safest suburbs in a 2025 list.
The Safewise rankings were released with its State of Safety survey, which found that perception didn’t always gel with reality. Although the statewide property crime rate of 23.4 incidents per 1,000 people is slightly higher than the national rate, Texas’ violent crime rate of 4.44 incidents per 1,000 people is consistent with the national average.

Still, Texans feel less safe than the average American. Only 49 percent of the survey’s respondents say they feel safe in the state compared to the national norm of 52 percent. 55 percent said they worry about their safety on a daily basis, a year-over-year increase from 52 percent. The data contrasts with first-hand reporting. For the second year in a row, Lone Star State participants said they have had few personal experiences with property crime and package theft.

The Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington metropolitan statistical area had the most ranked cities on the SafeWise list. The full top 10 includes:

No. 1 — Trophy Club (Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington)
No. 2 — Parker (Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington)
No. 3 — Memorial Villages (Houston–The Woodlands–Sugar Land)
No. 4 — Melissa (Dallas-Fort Worth)
No. 5 — Fair Oaks Ranch (San Antonio-New Braunfels)
No. 6 — Whitehouse (Tyler)
No. 7 — Murphy (Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington)
No. 8 — Fulshear (Houston–The Woodlands–Sugar Land)
No. 9 — Colleyville (Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington)
No. 10 — Lumberton (Beaumont-Port Arthur)

safety suburbs crime rankings trophy club dallas suburbs