Question 1: What is the real value of $100 in a city.
In the Austin-Round Rock-Georgetown Metropolitan Area, $100 can buy you $101.21 worth of goods and services.
That’s according to the Department of Commerce’s data from 2022, the latest year available.
That number might sound good, but it doesn’t compare too well to some other cities. It’s the worst in Texas besides the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington area ($96.62).
Houston is getting the same value for their money as Austin. But San Antonio is just one example of a big city where money goes much further: $100 can buy $105 of products.
And smaller areas like Texarkana City in the East and Cameron County in the south are both getting $117 of value for their money.
Question 2: How does this compare to other places around the country?
Austin’s $101.21 value is lower than the national average for a metropolitan area: $106.17
But if you’re willing to take a drive, you’ll get better value for your money in neighboring states than you will anywhere else in the U.S.
Pine Bluff, Arkansas shoppers get $123 worth of goods and services for $100. Nowhere else is cheaper.
Lawton, Oklahoma gets $117, also among the cheapest.
But the Department of Commerce also found 400 regions where $100 actually buys less than $100 of products. (out of 2,000 regions).
Californians get the worst deal – $100 buys less than $85 of products in San Francisco, the worst in the country.
NY/NJ, $88.50, Seattle, Boston, Miami, Washington DC – all in the high $80s
3. What does this mean for Texas residents and their financial status?
Almost 612,000 people moved to Texas from other states in 2023, and only 478,000 people left to go elsewhere in the U.S.
So that’s 133,000 new people in Texas: more than any other state, according to the
Census Bureau.
In general, overpopulation can lead to higher prices. That’s not always the case, but it could be one factor contributing to the low purchasing power in Austin.
Not every state can say that – New York has had a net loss since 2020, California since 2020 but they finally had a population bounce back. Illinois lost people last year, while it’s neighboring states Missouri, Iowa and Indiana all had net gains.
Question 4: Can we expect this trend to continue in the future?
In general, when a city gets bigger, prices go up. It’s possible the increasing population in Texas is one factor why your $100 doesn’t buy as much as it used to.
The increasing population could also make home prices higher. And previous surveys from the Census Bureau show that 35% of Americans who move do so to find cheaper housing.
The latest data we have from the Tax Foundation shows that the median family in Travis County and in Collin County is paying more than $7,000 in property taxes. The national median is only $1,815. We'll have to keep tabs on it to see if that drives people away from Austin.