DALLAS — It’s getting harder to afford living in Texas — even as incomes and educational attainment grow and poverty declines.

Despite the state’s robust economic growth since the start of the decade, incomes in Texas haven’t kept pace with the nation at large, U.S. Census Bureau data released Thursday show. And the state’s housing costs have outpaced income growth, leaving a greater share of Texas renters and homeowners spending a bigger chunk of their pay to keep a roof over their heads than they did before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Texas has long been viewed as incredibly affordable — especially compared with other large states like New York and California. Though housing here remains cheaper than in those places, that affordability has eroded in recent years amid the state’s economic growth.

“Texas is in no position to be taking a victory lap right now on housing affordability,” said Ben Martin, research director for Texas Housers, a research and advocacy group.

The median household income during the five-year period ending in 2024 was $78,476, a 3.1% increase from the five-year period ending in 2019. That’s beneath the U.S. median household income of $80,734, which grew at a quicker clip of 4.4% in that same period.

The cost of renting or owning a home in Texas grew faster than incomes as the state’s housing market boomed. The median rent grew 9.1% between the two five-year periods, when adjusted for inflation. Homeowners saw smaller but similar bumps in their total homeownership costs, including expenses like insurance and utilities.

More than half of the state’s 4.1 million renters are now “cost-burdened,” meaning they spend more than 30% of their income on rent — leaving them with fewer dollars leftover to spend on key household costs like groceries, child care and transportation or set aside for a down payment on a home of their own. Before the pandemic, about 48% of Texas tenants were considered “cost-burdened.”

A greater share of homeowners, who tend to be better off financially than renters, were also “cost-burdened” at the end of the five-year period than they were before the start of the decade. Some 29% of homeowners with a mortgage spent more than 30% of their income on housing as of 2024. Higher home insurance rates, in particular, have been a source of growing pain for homeowners.

Because the Census data was collected over five years, it captured big spikes in rents seen in Texas in 2021 and 2022 as well as flattening and falling rents in the following years, Martin noted. Rents in the Austin-Round Rock region have fallen in recent years amid a massive apartment building boom.

State lawmakers passed a suite of laws last year aimed at easing the state’s housing shortage, a key driver of the state’s high home prices and rents, primarily by making it easier to build new houses and apartments. Martin said lawmakers also need to adopt strategies to help lower-income households find housing they can afford.

The percentage of Texans living below the poverty line ticked down slightly, sitting at 13.8% for the 2020-2024 period. For the previous five-year period, that figure stood at 14.7%.

Educational attainment is on the rise, with a greater share of Texans having earned at least a bachelor’s degree — a combination of more college graduates moving to Texas for work and more Texans obtaining secondary degrees. More than two-thirds of Texans over the age of 25 held at least a bachelor’s degree in the 2020-24 period, up from 29.9% in the previous period. That growth has been driven primarily by women, particularly Hispanic women, seeking degrees, said Lloyd Potter, the state demographer.

“None of these (changes) are really dramatic, but they certainly are moving in the direction that I think we would like them to be moving,” Potter said.

WEATHERFORD, Texas – Despite icy roads, healthcare workers still have to work. And there’s a group of people who help make it happen.

The Dedicated Nurses

Mikki Sells is a nurse in Weatherford. But lately getting to work has become a job of its own.

“You know, we‘re nurses. We have to be there to help people,” she said. “Without us, you know, they wouldn’t have anybody. So it’s what we have to do.”

To get to work, she and a group of nurses have to cross a very steep hill. And on Tuesday night, the ride home didn’t go as planned.

“Last night, we didn’t make it. We got to the very top, and we got stuck on the very top, started sliding backwards. It was so scary,” she said.

The truck stopped. Everyone got out. And they did the only thing they could think to do. They called Trendsetter Customs.

The Off-Road Volunteers

Kevin Barwell was on the other end of the call. He runs an off-road shop in Weatherford. And when the weather gets bad, he doesn’t stay home.

“Everybody needs help in a bad time. And this seems like a bad time,” he said. “Every time we get a bad storm or something like this, we try to make sure first responders get where they need to be.”

For Barwell, it’s really that simple. Since Friday, he and a group of volunteers has been busy.

“Saturday, my day started at 5 a.m. I had to start delivering nurses at the 6 a.m. shift change. And then in between that, I was pulling people out. And then the 2 p.m. shift change and then the 10 p.m. shift change,” he said.

That included Sells and her group of nurses.

“I had actually just gotten home from my last delivery, just was about to get in the shower, and got a phone call,” Barwell said. “And she’s like, ‘We’re stuck on the hill. Can you please rescue us?’”

Five minutes later, the nurses were on their way.

Gratitude and Recognition

Barwell said he doesn’t need recognition. 

“I served 20 years in the military, so I know what it’s like to be in a bad situation,” he said.

But Sells has a message she hopes he hears.

“I’d love to give him a big old hug,” she said. “Thank you so much. I hope you get the recognition you deserve.”

Charles Thompson, who once briefly escaped custody after being sentenced to death, is scheduled to be executed Wednesday evening for the 1998 double murder of his former girlfriend and her friend.

Thompson had gotten into an altercation at his then-girlfriend Dennise Hayslip’s apartment in Houston with her and her friend, Darren Cain, before a police officer escorted Thompson off the property, according to court records. Early the next morning, Thompson returned to the apartment, killing Cain and shooting Hayslip in the mouth. Hayslip was life-flighted to a nearby hospital, where she died a week later.

Thompson was charged with capital murder for killing Cain and Hayslip and sentenced to death in 1999. In 2001, his death sentence was vacated by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals after judges ruled the Harris County District Attorney’s Office had unconstitutionally used an undercover investigator to obtain evidence for the trial. Thompson was given a new sentencing hearing, where a jury again sentenced him to death in 2005.

While Thompson does not dispute shooting Cain, he has said the man attacked him first and he acted defensively. Thompson has also asserted that Hayslip would have survived her wounds, which partially severed her tongue, had it not been for her receiving an improper intubation while at the hospital.

Days after his resentencing, Thompson escaped from the Harris County Jail by switching into the civilian clothes he had worn to resentencing hearings and posed as an employee with the state Attorney General’s Office. The escape led to a three-day manhunt that ended with Thompson being caught drunk in Louisiana.

Thompson filed a new appeal and a request for a stay of execution with the CCA on Jan. 21 that called into question the efficacy of his legal counsel during trial. It also asserted Thompson’s previous claim that the hospital’s alleged improper intubation of Hayslip ultimately killed her. Included in the new filing was an affidavit from a doctor who testified during Thompson’s trial about Hayslip’s cause of death, stating she would withdraw her trial testimony and instead assert medical complications were the cause of death.

The CCA has yet to rule on the stay request or the appeal. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a previous federal habeas corpus appeal from Thompson in 2021.

If executed, Thompson will be the first person put to death in the United States this year, and is one of four men in Texas with currently scheduled executions. Thompson will also be the 136th person Harris County has executed since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. The county has executed more people than any other state, and in 2025 sentenced its 300th person to death.

Texas’ use of the death penalty has dwindled for years as new death sentences and executions per year have remained in the single digits for more than a decade.

Cedric Ricks is the next person scheduled for execution in Texas on March 11. Ricks was convicted of capital murder in 2014 for stabbing his common-law wife and her 8-year-old son to death in their Fort Worth apartment.