What The Average Person in Texas’ Poorest Town Earns is Absolutely Shocking

Texas is home to many billionaires, including Elon Musk who is the second richest man on the planet. However, on the other side of that coin is a disturbing number of Texans living in poverty. I was shocked to learn the amount of money people in Texas' poorest town are living on.

According to Sofi, The average annual average salary in the U.S. is $63,795. They also note that the median annual salary, which is often less skewed by outlying numbers, is $59,384.

The website breaks down the numbers further, noting that "12.3% of Americans make in the $75,000 to $99,999 range,16.4% make between $100,000 and $149,000, and 16.2% earn in the $50,000 to $74,999 range."

As of 2022, the average median household income in the U.S. was "$73,914, meaning the national range for the middle class is roughly $49,271 to $147,828."

How much does the average Texan earn annually?

In 2023 the average person in Texan earned $65,422. And according to one study, to be considered middle class in Texas, a family of four must earn $66,597 -- which ranks 30th.

So which city is the poorest in Texas? For that we turn to Road Snacks, the site described how they came to their conclusion:

"... we used Saturday Night Science to look at this set of criteria from the newly released 2018-2022 American Community Survey: Poverty Level Median and Household Income.

After we collected the data for all 360 places with more than 5,000 people in Texas, we ranked each place from 1 to 360 for each of the criteria, with 1 being the poorest. We then averaged all the rankings for a place into a “Poor Score” with the place having the lowest overall Poor Score the “Poorest Place In Texas For 2024.”

Based on this criteria Road Snacks found Prairie View, TX to rank as the poorest place in The Lone Star State. This is due to a combination of low pay and and an unfortunate lack of jobs.

1. Prairie View, TX

Population: 8,039
Rank Last Year: 1 (No Change)
Median Income: $19,238 (lowest)
Poverty Rate: 44.7% (highest)
People In Poverty: 3,590

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