Texas › Salaries
What jobs pay in Texas, city by city.
Every number sourced. Checked this month.
Austin is the only big Texas metro where the average job pays clearly more than the national average: $35.85 an hour against $33.54 for the U.S. (BLS, May 2025 data, released Aug 13, 2026). Dallas-Fort Worth sits just above the national mark, Houston just below it, San Antonio about 12% below and El Paso about a quarter below. Lower prices offset part of that gap, which is why we pair pay with the living wage and the price level.
Numbers last checked October 31, 2026Average pay, all jobs, by metro
Mean (average) wage across every occupation, from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) survey for May 2025, released by BLS’s Southwest office on Aug 13, 2026. A mean is pulled up by high earners, so the typical worker earns less than this.
| Metro | Mean hourly, May 2025 | Yearly equivalent (× 2,080, our math) | Mean hourly a year earlier (May 2024) | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos | $35.85 | $74,568 | $34.32 | BLS |
| Dallas–Fort Worth-Arlington | $33.96 | $70,637 | — | BLS |
| Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands | $32.51 | $67,621 | — | BLS |
| San Antonio-New Braunfels | $29.39 | $61,131 | $28.58 | BLS |
| El Paso | $24.94 | $51,875 | — | BLS |
| For comparison | ||||
| United States | $33.54 | $69,763 | $32.66 | BLS |
Texas statewide: BLS’s state OEWS tables for May 2025 sit in a data viewer we could not read this session, so there is no statewide row yet. The 2,080-hour conversion is the full-time year BLS itself uses for annual figures.
Pay by type of work
Mean hourly wage for twelve of the 22 major occupation groups that BLS reports for each metro (Table A of each May 2025 release). Each group bundles many jobs: “healthcare practitioners” includes nurses, pharmacists and doctors; “educational instruction” covers teachers from preschool to college; “transportation” includes truck drivers and warehouse workers.
| Occupation group (what it covers) | Austin | DFW | Houston | San Antonio | El Paso | U.S. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Office and professional | ||||||
| Management (general managers, executives) | $71.09 | $69.19 | $69.09 | $59.93 | $51.00 | $69.84 |
| Business and financial (accountants, analysts, HR) | $44.76 | $44.39 | $44.04 | $41.06 | $35.01 | $45.78 |
| Computer and math (software developers, IT) | $58.73 | $57.55 | $52.79 | $50.81 | $43.46 | $57.73 |
| Architecture and engineering | $55.89 | $51.45 | $54.26 | $45.71 | $40.22 | $51.36 |
| Office and administrative support (clerks, customer service) | $25.20 | $24.60 | $23.66 | $22.79 | $19.97 | $24.79 |
| Health and education | ||||||
| Healthcare practitioners (registered nurses, pharmacists) | $48.95 | $52.34 | $50.30 | $47.00 | $43.48 | $52.26 |
| Healthcare support (medical assistants, home health aides) | $20.67 | $18.27 | $16.83 | $16.41 | $14.23 | $19.62 |
| Educational instruction and library (teachers) | $31.36 | $30.21 | $31.65 | $28.41 | $28.61 | $32.47 |
| Trades, service and transport | ||||||
| Construction and extraction (electricians, carpenters) | $27.53 | $27.03 | $27.41 | $25.94 | $22.75 | $31.42 |
| Transportation and material moving (truck drivers, warehouse) | $21.90 | $24.17 | $24.26 | $21.23 | $20.01 | $23.96 |
| Sales and related (retail, sales reps) | $28.31 | $26.74 | $25.42 | $23.02 | $19.23 | $26.43 |
| Food preparation and serving (cooks, servers, fast food) | $16.50 | $15.74 | $14.70 | $15.02 | $13.13 | $17.86 |
| Sources. BLS OEWS May 2025, Table A of each metro release, all released Aug 13, 2026: Austin, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, San Antonio, El Paso. U.S. column from the same releases. | ||||||
Specific jobs BLS broke out
Each metro release also details one occupation group. That gives us exact figures for a handful of common jobs (mean wage, May 2025):
| Job | Metro | Mean hourly | Mean yearly | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Software developers (31,960 jobs) | Austin | $69.05 | $143,630 | BLS, Table 1 |
| Computer user support specialists | Austin | $31.76 | $66,060 | BLS, Table 1 |
| General and operations managers (125,090 jobs) | DFW | $66.88 | $139,120 | BLS, Table 1 |
| Food service managers | DFW | $33.89 | $70,500 | BLS, Table 1 |
| Electricians | Houston | $29.55 | $61,470 | BLS, Table 1 |
| Plumbers, pipefitters and steamfitters | Houston | $30.70 | $63,860 | BLS, Table 1 |
| Construction laborers | Houston | $21.08 | $43,850 | BLS, Table 1 |
| Customer service representatives | San Antonio | $20.64 | $42,940 | BLS, Table 1 |
| Customer service representatives | El Paso | $18.34 | $38,140 | BLS, Table 1 |
| Bookkeeping, accounting and auditing clerks | San Antonio | $24.41 | $50,770 | BLS, Table 1 |
| Office clerks, general | San Antonio / El Paso | $19.99 / $17.37 | $41,590 / $36,130 | BLS, Table 1 |
| Receptionists and information clerks | San Antonio / El Paso | $18.14 / $14.75 | $37,740 / $30,670 | BLS, Table 1 |
We plan to add exact figures for registered nurses, teachers, truck drivers, retail salespeople, cashiers and accountants in every metro once we can pull BLS’s full May 2025 metro tables directly. Until then, the group rows above are the closest sourced guide.
Median household income by city
What the middle household in each city brings in, all earners combined. These are Census American Community Survey 2024 1-year figures for the city itself (not the metro) unless marked. The 2025 ACS 1-year came out on Oct 29, 2026; we will switch to it once the city tables are reachable through Census Reporter or data.census.gov.
Texas statewide: $79,700 (2024, USAFacts from Census ACS). Big-city figures sit below their metros because suburbs earn more: the Houston metro median was about $81,000 in 2024 against $64,361 in the city. College Station’s figure is pulled down by student households.
Unemployment
| Area | Rate | Month | Notes | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Texas, seasonally adjusted | 4.4% | Sep 2026 | Released Oct 16, 2026. Texas added 154,300 jobs over the year (1.1%). | TWC |
| U.S., not seasonally adjusted | 4.0% | Sep 2026 | As listed in TWC’s metro table | TWC |
| Metros (not seasonally adjusted, preliminary) | ||||
| Austin | 3.7% | Sep 2026 | BLS | |
| Dallas-Fort Worth | 4.1% | Sep 2026 | BLS | |
| San Antonio | 4.3% | Sep 2026 | BLS | |
| Houston | 4.6% | Sep 2026 | Down from 5.0% in August | BLS |
| El Paso | 4.6% | Aug 2026 | September not yet posted when we checked | BLS |
| Amarillo, College Station-Bryan | 3.5% | Sep 2026 | Second-lowest in Texas after Midland (3.2%); Eagle Pass was highest at 6.2% | TWC |
Due soon TWC’s next release, with October 2026 figures, is scheduled for Nov 20, 2026.
Minimum wage
Texas uses the federal minimum of $7.25 an hour, unchanged since Jul 24, 2009, and state law stops cities and counties from setting a higher local rate (Labor Code §62.0515). Full-time, $7.25 works out to $15,080 a year (our math, 2,080 hours), well under MIT’s statewide living wage of $45,290 for a single adult. In practice most Texas pay sits far above the minimum: even the lowest-paid group in our table, food service in El Paso, averages $13.13 an hour.
Out-of-date numbers you’ll still find online
$34.32 was the May 2024 figure, released Jun 2025. The May 2025 data came out Aug 13, 2026.
Same story: the older number is May 2024; the current one is May 2025.
Comparisons against the old national figure make Texas metros look better paid than they are. Use $33.54.
The 2025 ACS 1-year was released Oct 29, 2026, so the figures above will be replaced soon.
How we check
Wage figures come from BLS and the Texas Workforce Commission; income from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey. Where we convert hourly pay to a yearly figure, we say so. Read the full methodology.