Glassdoor, an online employment company, finds that the median income in the U.S. is $51,277, up 2.9% from February of last year. Houston’s increase has been 2.2%. “Average income in Texas is a little below the national average,” says economist Ray Perryman. “If you look at it based on purchasing power we actually do quite well because the cost of living is much lower in Texas.” Perryman sites the lack of state income tax as a prime driver in the equation, but points out that Texas has in the past jumped ahead of the national average during oil booms. “There was a time in the oil patch a few years ago when an oil truck driver could make $150,000 a year but those times are not sustainable over a long period of time.”
An increase in the national average is going to benefit residents of Houston, says Patrick Jankowski, a senior economist with the greater Houston Partnership. “When people elsewhere in the U.S. have more money to spend they’re going to spend it on things we produce in Houston, whether it’s plastics, or refined products, or ice chests or medical procedures,” Jankowski tells KTRH News.
Glassdoor finds the best paychecks are going to doctors, who average $242,438 a year. Tax managers bring in more than $92,00 a year and product managers around $90. On the low end of the scale, pharmacy technicians average just under $30,000 a year, bank tellers around $28,000 and cashiers $27,204.