I NEED A MASSAGE

3 Dallas-Fort Worth cities among most stressful for workers, report says

Stressed out woman looking at her laptop

Work life in Dallas is hard.

Feeling totally stressed about work? Many fellow workers in Dallas-Fort Worth feel the pain.

In a new report from LLC.org, Arlington, Dallas, and Fort Worth were deemed among the 10 most stressful U.S. cities to work in. Two more - Garland and Irving - made the top 30. Ouch.

LLC.org’s analysis looked at eight different categories such as average commute time, average weekly hours worked, income growth rate, and more. Each of the 170-plus cities researched in the report have a population of at least 150,000 people – which adds up to a lot of stressed-out folks nationwide.

Houston earned the top most stressful city ranking due to its nearly 53-minute average round trip daily commute, not to mention that one in three people in the city are on the road before 7 am every morning. To top it off, Houston’s percentage of workers without health insurance is a whopping 30.4 percent. (That’s a lot to be stressed about.)

Arlington was ranked second overall for its 39.9-hour average daily work week. The city's 3.4 percent income growth rate also plays a major factor, as it is nearly half of the national average. Adding in the low percentage of remote workers and its 52-minute round trip commute provides a full understanding of Arlington's placement in the report.

Dallas earned its third most stressful city ranking due to its long work week and high number of workers without health insurance. Twenty-five percent of workers do not have health insurance, which is significantly higher than the national average of 10.5 percent.

Additionally, the city has the ninth longest work week out of all cities in the analysis. The average Dallas laborer works 40.2 hours a week, which is greater than the 38.7 hour national average. But Dallas’ average commute is a little lower than Houston's (No. 1) and Arlington's – at 51.4 minutes round trip.

A little further down in the top 10 is Fort Worth, at No. 8. High percentages of single-income families (nearly 42 percent) and workers on the road before 7 am (36 percent) are what led to the city's ranking. For Worth also ranks neck-and-neck with Arlington for the percentage of workers without insurance, at both 22 percent.

Garland lands at No. 13, and Irving, at No. 26. Garland recently made another headline as having one of the worst commutes in America.

Rounding out the top five are Memphis, Tennessee (No. 4) and Las Vegas, Nevada (No. 5) with Corpus Christi taking the No. 6 spot.

Other Texas cities that made the list include San Antonio (No. 12), Brownsville (No. 15), and El Paso (No. 22).

The top 10 most stressful cities for workers are:

No. 1: Houston
No. 2: Arlington, Texas
No. 3: Dallas
No 4: Memphis, Tennessee
No. 5: Las Vegas
No. 6: Corpus Christi, Texas
No. 7: Fayetteville, North Carolina
No. 8: Fort Worth, Texas
No. 9: Moreno Valley, California
No. 10: Modesto, California

In an examination of the least stressful cities for workers, not a single Texas city made the top 10. Madison, Wisconsin earned the ranking of least stressful city to work in. It must be nice to have a 36.6-hour average workweek and short average round trip commute of 37.4 minutes. If only...

The full report can be found at llc.org.

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closing the gaps

Texas no longer leads U.S. for racial progress, new report says

The Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center in Dallas

The Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center/Facebook

WalletHub's report is released annually ahead of MLK Day.

Texas has been overtaken as the No. 1 state that has made the most racial progress, according to a new study.

The Lone Star State led the nation in 2025, but now ranks in third place behind Georgia (No. 1) and Mississippi (No. 2). It also ranked No. 5 nationally in the list of states with the most racial integration.

WalletHub's "States That Have Made the Most Racial Progress" study is released annually ahead of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. The report compares all 50 states and the District of Columbia across 22 relevant metrics divided into two main rankings: racial integration (which the study defines as "the current integration levels of white people and Black people") and racial progress (defined as "the levels of racial progress achieved over time").

The report's author clarifies that the study focuses only on the racial integration between Black people and white people "in light of racial tensions in recent years that sparked the Black Lives Matter movement."

"We released this report ahead of the holiday honoring Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who played a prominent role in the Civil Rights Movement to end segregation and discrimination against Black people," the report says.

The study further divided each ranking into four main categories measuring the gaps between white people and Black people over time; spanning employment and wealth, education, social and civic engagement, and health. Texas performed the best in education and health, ranking No. 4 nationally in both categories, and it ranked in sixth place for its social and civic engagement. The state ranked 16th in the category for employment and wealth.

According to WalletHub, Texas has "done a lot" to reduce gaps in health outcomes for white and Black residents, such as reducing gaps in health insurance coverage, and reducing the share of Black Texans suffering from "poor health" and diabetes. It also notes that Texas "made the second-most progress when it comes to obesity," but it did not acknowledge the racial bias in body mass index (BMI) that has been increasingly flagged in recent years.

The report further praises Texas for reducing the gap in business ownership between white and Black Texans, and for its improvement in reducing discrimination in the parole system. WalletHub does not offer data behind the parole claim.

"It’s encouraging to look at the data and see that some states have made significant strides toward racial equality over the past few decades," said WalletHub analyst Chip Lupo regarding the overall report. "This change demonstrates that state-level policies and residents’ attitudes regarding equality have grown considerably better."

Though racial disparity gaps are closing between white and Black people, racial profiling and discrimination is still a major issue affecting Black people and other people of color across the country.

In 2023, a senate bill banned public Texas universities from having diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) offices and programs, prompting warnings of discrimination against Black, Hispanic, and other marginalized students, including those with disabilities.

The top 10 states with the most racial progress in 2026 are:

No. 1 – Georgia
No. 2 – Mississippi
No. 3 – Texas
No. 4 – North Carolina
No. 5 – Maryland
No. 6 – Florida
No. 7 – New Jersey
No. 8 – Massachusetts
No. 9 – Louisiana
No. 10 – New Mexico

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