income woes

Here's what it takes to be a middle class earner in Dallas-Fort Worth in 2024

It's becoming increasingly difficult to be middle class earner in an area like Dallas-Fort Worth.

No one wants to hear that they aren't making enough money to be considered "middle class," and those income ceilings are getting more difficult to maintain year after year across all of Dallas-Fort Worth. And a new report has revealed Frisco has the No. 8 highest income ceiling for American middle class earners in 2024.

According to the 2024 edition of SmartAsset's annual "What It Takes to Be Middle Class in America" report, middle class households in Frisco would need to make between $97,266 and $291,828 a year to be labeled "middle class." Additionally, the city's median middle class household income comes out to $145,914 a year.

The report used a variation of Pew Research's definition of a middle class household, stating the salary range is "two-thirds to double the median U.S. salary." To determine income limits, the report analyzed data from the Census Bureau's 2022 one-year American Community Survey. New to the 2024 report, SmartAsset widened its analysis of income data from 100 to 345 of the largest American cities.

Frisco's middle class income thresholds are egregiously higher than the national average, the study found.

"In a large U.S. city, a middle-class income averages between $52,000 and $155,000," the report says. "The median household income across all 345 cities is $77,345, making middle-class income limits fall between $51,558 and $154,590."

In a shocking turn of events, Plano plummeted into No. 43 this year after ranking in the top 10 in SmartAsset's 2023 report. At the time, a Plano household needed to make between $63,651 and $190,004 a year to be considered middle class. But the latest findings from the 2024 report show the necessary salary range to maintain a middle class designation in Plano is now between $69,270 and $207,832 a year.

Irving, which ranked No. 38 last year with a middle class income range between $47,128 and $140,680 a year, also took a huge tumble in the 2024 report, falling out of the top 100 into No. 150. Households in Irving now need to make between $52,212 and $156,652 a year to be middle class.

In Dallas proper, the city fell from No. 72 to No. 213 in 2024, with households needing to make between $43,596 and $130,800 to maintain their "middle class" status. Last year, middle class earners would have needed to make between $38,857 and $115,990 annually.

The study's findings are shedding light on further growing financial stress and affordability struggles throughout the U.S., likely heightened by inflation and cost of living increases.

"As a middle-class American, there is some expectation for living a lifestyle of relative comfort," the report said. "But as costs have increased significantly over the last few years, the middle class is now feeling a squeeze in their finances."

Here’s what it takes to be middle class in other Dallas-Fort Worth cities:

No. 21 – Allen: between $80,743 and $242,254 a year
No. 40 – McKinney: between $69,739 and $209,238 a year
No. 78 – Carrollton: between $61,816 and $185,468 a year
No. 101 – Richardson: between $57,444 and $172,350 a year
No. 147 – Lewisville: between $52,631 and $157,910 a year
No. 178 – Grand Prairie: between $48,176 and $144,542 a year
No. 182 – Denton: between $47,803 and $143,422 a year
No. 184 – Fort Worth: between $47,680 and $143,054 a year (versus $45,717-$136,470 last year)
No. 185 – Garland: between $47,456 and $142,382 a year, (versus $41,277-$123,214 last year)
No. 192 – Arlington: between $46,951 and $140,866 a year (versus $40,126-$119,778 last year)
No. 203 – Mesquite: between $45,418 and $136,268 a year

Middle class income thresholds within the top 10 U.S. cities
Frisco wasn't the only Texas city to earn a spot in the top 10. The Woodlands, a suburb outside of Houston, ranked No. 10 in the national comparison of U.S. cities with the highest income thresholds to be labeled middle class.

Middle class households in The Woodlands make between $91,548 and $274,670 a year, with the median household income at $137,335, according to the report.

Unsurprisingly, half of the top 10 cities with the highest middle class income ceilings are in California. The report found households in four of the five cities could be bringing in over $300,000 a year in income and still be classified as middle class.

California’s overall high cost-of-living means residents in the No. 1 city of Sunnyvale would need to make between $113,176 and $339,562 a year to be labeled middle class. Sunnyvale overtook Fremont for the top spot in the report in 2024.

The top 10 cities with the highest middle class ceilings are:

No. 1 – Sunnyvale, California
No. 2 – Fremont, California
No. 3 – San Mateo, California
No. 4 – Santa Clara, California
No. 5 – Bellevue, Washington
No. 6 – Highlands Ranch, Colorado
No. 7 – Carlsbad, California
No. 8 – Frisco, Texas
No. 9 – Naperville, Illinois
No. 10 – The Woodlands, Texas

The full report and its methodology can be found on smartasset.com.

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Winter weather warning

Forecasters warn of 'potentially catastrophic' winter storm in Texas

Photo by Uliana Sova on Unsplash

This weekend could bring ice to Dallas-Fort Worth and beyond.

With many Americans still recovering from multiple blasts of snow and unrelenting freezing temperatures in the nation’s northern tier, a new storm is set to emerge this weekend that could coat roads, trees and power lines with devastating ice across a wide expanse of the South, including Texas.

The storm arriving late this week and into the weekend is shaping up to be a “widespread potentially catastrophic event from Texas to the Carolinas,” said Ryan Maue, a former chief scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

“I don’t know how people are going to deal with it,” he said.

Forecasters on Tuesday, January 20 warned that the ice could weigh down trees and power lines, triggering widespread outages.

“If you get a half of an inch of ice — or heaven forbid an inch of ice — that could be catastrophic,” said Keith Avery, CEO of the Newberry Electric Cooperative in South Carolina.

The National Weather Service warned of "great swaths of heavy snow, sleet, and treacherous freezing rain” starting Friday in much of the nation’s midsection and then shifting toward the East Coast through Sunday.

Temperatures will be slow to warm in many areas, meaning ice that forms on roads and sidewalks might stick around, forecasters say.

The exact timing of the approaching storm — and where it is headed — remained uncertain on Tuesday. Forecasters say it can be challenging to predict precisely which areas could see rain and which ones could be punished with ice.

Meteorologists at WFAA say it's too early for an exact forecast across Dallas-Fort Worth. But it's good to start being weather aware.

Here’s what to know:

Cold air clashing with rain to fuel a 'major winter storm’
An extremely cold arctic air mass is set to dive south from Canada, setting up a clash with the cold temperatures and rain that will be streaming eastward across the southern U.S.

“This is extreme, even for this being the peak of winter,” National Weather Service meteorologist Bryan Jackson said of the cold temperatures.

When the cold air meets the rain, the likely result will be “a major winter storm with very impactful weather, with all the moisture coming up from the Gulf and encountering all this particularly cold air that’s spilling in,” Jackson said.

Texas could be a harbinger for other parts of the South
Some of the storm’s earliest impacts could be in Texas on Friday, as the arctic air mass slides south through much of the state, National Weather Service forecaster Sam Shamburger said in a briefing on the storm.

“At the same time, we’re expecting rain to move into much of the state,” Shamburger said.

Low temperatures could fall into the 20s or even the teens in parts of Texas by Saturday, with the potential for a wintery mix of weather in the northern part of the state.

Forecasters cautioned that significant uncertainty remains, particularly over how much ice or snow could fall across north and central Texas.

“It’s going to be a very difficult forecast,” Shamburger said.

An atmospheric river could set up across the Southern U.S.
An atmospheric river of moisture could be in place by the weekend, pulling precipitation across Texas and other states along the Gulf Coast and continuing across Georgia and the Carolinas, forecasters said.

“Global models are painting a concerning picture of what this weekend could look like, with an increasingly strong signal for ice storm potential across North Georgia and portions of central Georgia,” according to the National Weather Service's Atlanta office.

Highway and air travel could be tangled by the storm
Travel is a major concern, as Southern states have less equipment to remove snow and ice from roads, and extremely cold temperatures expected after the storm could prevent ice from melting for several days.

The storm is also expected to impact many of the nation’s major hub airports, including those in Dallas-Fort Worth; Atlanta; Memphis, Tennessee; and Charlotte, North Carolina.

Polar air from Canada to keep northern states in a deep freeze
Unusually cold temperatures are already in place across much of the northern tier of the U.S., but the blast of arctic air expected later this week is “will be the coldest yet,” Jackson said.

“There’s a large sprawling vortex of low pressure centered over Hudson Bay,” Jackson said of the sea in northern Canada that’s connected to the Arctic Ocean. “And this is dominating the weather over all of North America.”

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