People often cite Texas as the place to be if you're hoping to stretch your dollar. A new study from Bankrate confirms this idea, naming Dallas-Fort Worth the sixth best city for accumulating and saving wealth.
Bankrate used experts to determine how strong of an environment for wealth exists in the 18 largest metro areas in the United States. According to those experts, these are the biggest contributors: after-tax, savable income; the job market; human capital; access to financial services; and the local housing market.
The availability of retirement plans like 401(k)s, a major wealth-building tool for middle-class households, also figured in. “If you’re in an area where the unemployment rate is very low, then the employers have to compete for you, and part of how employers compete for you is they offer benefits and they offer retirement plans,” Christian Weller, an economist at the University of Massachusetts Boston, told Bankrate. “Employers do compete on a regional level, on a city level, for talent.”
DFW triumphs in both the housing market and debt level categories (No. 4 for both), but slips in access to financial services (No. 12) and savable income (No. 14). Our local labor market comes in at No. 8.
Houston scores the No. 1 ranking and also has the best debt level the 18 surveyed cities. Houston is followed by Washington, D.C.; Cleveland; Detroit; and New York.
