The 5 Texas Cities With the Lowest Salary Needed to Live Comfortably

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Making ends meet can be a real challenge these days.

Sometimes it requires working overtime, having a side hustle, or excavating the dark, crumb-littered bottoms of your couch cushions to meet your monthly financial goals.

But despite the skyrocketing cost of, well, seemingly everything, a SmartAsset 2024 study found that there are 5 Texas cities where one doesn’t have to make all that much annually to live comfortably compared to almost every other large metropolis in the United States.

Data and Methodology

In order to determine the salary needed to reach the minimum level of comfortableness, the analysis “used MIT Living Wage Calculator data to gather the cost of necessities including housing, food, transportation and income taxes.”

MIT’s living wage is assumed to cover needs. From there the total wage was extrapolated for individuals and families to spend 30% of the total on wants and 20% on savings or debt payments. (SmartAsset study)

The 5 Texas Cities with the Lowest Salaries Needed to Live Comfortably

The analysis calculated in the SmartAsset 2024 study determined that making a living in the five cities in Texas listed below doesn’t require an excessively high annual salary to live mostly free of financial stress.

Of course, your milage may vary depending on a host of intangibles; most noteably how comfortably you like to live.

But if one can manage their wants and needs properly, an annual salary in the seventy thousands will keep you free from the stress of living paycheck to paycheck.

And the city holding down the number one spot might actually shock you.

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#1 in Texas, #1 in U.S. - Houston
Hourly wage needed for a single adult: $36.10
Annual salary needed for a single adult to live comfortably: $75,088
Combined salaries for two working adults with two children needed: $175,219

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#2 in Texas, #2 in U.S. - El Paso
Hourly wage needed for a single adult: $36.18
Annual salary needed for a single adult to live comfortably: $75,254
Combined salaries for two working adults with two children needed: $180,461

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#3 in Texas, #3 in U.S. - Lubbock
Hourly wage needed for a single adult: $36.24
Annual salary needed for a single adult to live comfortably: $75,379
Combined salaries for two working adults with two children needed: $181,043

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#4 in Texas, #5 in U.S. - Laredo
Hourly wage needed for a single adult: $37.72
Annual salary needed for a single adult to live comfortably: $78,458
Combined salaries for two working adults with two children needed: $179,046

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#5 in Texas, #15 in U.S. - Corpus Christi

Hourly wage needed for a single adult: $39.66
Annual salary needed for a single adult to live comfortably: $82,493
Combined salaries for two working adults with two children needed: $192,275

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