Feast your eyes

3 Dallas-area cities gobble up top spots among best U.S. places for Thanksgiving

Dallas even has its own Thanks-Giving Square.

Courtesy photo

Texans still looking for the best place to enjoy a Thanksgiving feast without breaking their banks might want to head to Plano, Irving, or Dallas. The three cities rank highly on a new list of the best places to go for Thanksgiving.

The study, published by WalletHub, compares the top 100 largest U.S. cities across 20 key metrics, including the cost of Thanksgiving dinner, number of delayed flights, and even forecast precipitation.

Atlanta, Georgia ranks No. 1 on the list, with Orlando, Florida; Las Vega, Nevada; Raleigh, North Carolina; and Gilbert, Arizona rounding out the top five.

Plano ranks No. 7 on the list, while Irving and Dallas took the ninth and 13th spots, respectively. Other North Texas cities that made the list include Garland (No. 24), Arlington (No. 44), and Fort Worth, which just barely makes it into the top 100, landing at No. 84.

Other cities around Texas to make the list are:

Corpus Christi (No. 25)
Laredo (No. 31)
San Antonio (No. 32)
Austin (No. 33)
Houston (No. 53)
El Paso (No. 64)
Lubbock (No. 85)

The average American spends about $301 during the five-day Thanksgiving period, according to a list of Thanksgiving fun facts compiled by WalletHub. Annually, Americans as a whole spend an estimated $835 million on Thanksgiving turkeys, with 46 million turkeys killed for the holiday.

In addition to the cities’ overall ranking, WalletHub revealed the cities’ rankings for the individual categories they were evaluated by. Five of those categories include Thanksgiving Celebrations and Traditions, Affordability, Safety and Accessibility, Giving Thanks, and Thanksgiving Weather Forecast.

Surely the big Cowboys game with Jonas Brothers' halftime show factors into the DFW "celebrations and traditions" score, right?

Dallas and Irving are tied at No. 4 on the list for having the best Thanksgiving Weather Forecast (which calls for a high of 61 this year, according to WFAA).

Other Dallas rankings include:

No. 13 for Thanksgiving Celebrations and Traditions
No. 18 for Affordability
No. 93 for Safety and Accessibility
No. 37 for Giving Thanks

No. 32-ranking San Antonio has these rankings on the list:

No. 46 for Thanksgiving Celebrations and Traditions
No. 2 for Affordability
No. 66 for Safety and Accessibility
No. 85 for Giving Thanks
No. 26 for Thanksgiving Weather Forecast

The state’s No. 33-ranking capital, Austin, had an average ranking for each category:

No. 41 for Thanksgiving Celebrations and Traditions
No. 19 for Affordability
No. 42 for Safety and Accessibility
No. 82 for Giving Thanks
No. 36 for Thanksgiving Weather Forecast.

The city of Houston ranked in the top 10 for Affordability but didn’t score highly in any other category:

No. 48 for Thanksgiving Celebrations and Traditions
No. 7 for Affordability
No. 88 for Safety and Accessibility
No. 58 for Giving Thanks
No. 43 for Thanksgiving Weather Forecast.

Fort Worth was in the top 5 for weather but hit the bottom 10 for safety:

No. 87 for Thanksgiving Celebrations and Traditions
No. 31 for Affordability
No. 95 for Safety and Accessibility
No. 52 for Giving Thanks
No. 4 for Thanksgiving Weather Forecast.

You can view the full list and find more information about the 100 best U.S. places for Thanksgiving here.

rankings wallethub holidays

who needs a raise?

Here's the income it takes to be in the top 1 percent in Texas in 2026

Hundred dollar bills, top 1 percent earners, income study

Photo by Jonathan Borba on Unsplash

The income needed to be ranked among the top 1 percent of earners in Texas has snowballed past $800,000.

In a state where local billionaires are wealthier than they've ever been, high-earning Texans need to make $73,000 more than they did a year ago if they want to be among the top 1 percent of earners, a new report has revealed.

SmartAsset's latest study analyzed income thresholds for the top 1, 5, and 10 percent of earners in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, using 2022 IRS data for individual tax return filers (the most recent year available), adjusted to 2026 dollars.

Texas has the 11th highest income threshold, with residents needing to make a minimum of $817,158 to be considered among the top 1 percent of earners statewide. In 2025, Texans needed to make about $744,000 to be among the top 1 percent.

For comparison, residents living in the nation's capital must make at least $1.16 million to qualify as top 1 percent earners. The District of Columbia led the nation with the highest income threshold to be a top earner.

To be considered among the top 5 percent of earners in Texas, a resident would need to make $312,671. The income threshold to be considered among the top 10 percent is $210,609.

SmartAsset additionally found that 128,130 Texas residents qualified as top 1 percent earners in 2022. Nationally, the report estimated that fewer than 2 million households earn enough to be considered among the top 1 percent of earners nationwide, but 23 million households rank among the top 10 percent.

"In some places, households can enter the top 1 percent at income levels that fall well below the threshold elsewhere, reflecting an uneven landscape of wages and wealth," the report said.

A separate SmartAsset study that tracked the upper and lower thresholds for middle class households found Dallas residents need to make anywhere from $49,549 to $148,646 to maintain their middle class status. But in other North Texas cities, residents can make up to $291,000 — a figure that would place them between the top 5 and 10 percent of earners — and still be labeled "middle class."

The top 10 states with the highest thresholds to be considered in the top 1 percent of earners in the U.S. are:

No. 1 – District of Columbia ($1,156,664)
No. 2 – Connecticut ($1,147,898)
No. 3 – Massachusetts ($1,006,921)
No. 4 – California ($987,325)
No. 5– New Jersey ($969,976)
No. 6 – New York ($959,562)
No. 7 – Florida ($956,449)
No. 8 – Washington ($903,303)
No. 9 – Colorado ($828,772)
No. 10 – Wyoming ($819,014)

income finance smartasset reports salaries

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who needs a raise?

Here's the income it takes to be in the top 1 percent in Texas in 2026