“Life Works Greater.”
This grammatically awkward tagline, which mimics the name of San Antonio’s regional economic development organization, has been seen by as many as 52 million people in targeted cities across the country, according to Greater:SATX, which launched the campaign last February.
Featuring images of local landmarks like the Pearl, the River Walk and Frost Tower, the Life Works Greater campaign emphasizes the city’s affordability, quality of life and access to great food and entertainment.
What resonated most was the message about San Antonio’s competitive cost of living, said Cecilia Garcia Redmond, chief brand and communications officer for Greater:SATX. “We have several different taglines, and ‘Your dollars go further’ continues to rise and bubble up to the top,” she said.
But with median home prices rising more than 30% since 2019 and higher prices from inflation still putting the pinch on many people’s budgets, how affordable is San Antonio these days?
The answer is, it depends on where you’re coming from. For new residents who have settled in San Antonio from the West Coast, the Northeast or other major cities, the cost of living can feel like a breath of fresh air.
“Originally from Connecticut. A short stint in California and now here. San Antonio is dirt cheap in every measurable comparison,” wrote someone on Reddit in response to a thread posted earlier this week, asking those who’ve recently moved to San Antonio where they came from, what was cheaper and more expensive.
But local wages often reflect the lower cost of living, and in a city where almost one in five people live in poverty, many people who live here are struggling to find affordable rent, buy their first home or absorb the inflationary rise in prices for food, goods and services.
Cost of living index
The Life Works Greater campaign includes a cost-of-living calculator that allows visitors to compare prices in different U.S. cities on everything from homes and rent to utilities and groceries. It uses proprietary data from the Council for Community and Economic Research, which has been publishing a cost of living index since 1968 that allows for city-to-city comparisons.
The average for all participating places is set at 100, with each city’s score as a percentage of the average. San Antonio currently ranks 91.3, meaning it is 8.7% less expensive than the average city.
Greater:SATX’s campaign uses that lower average cost of living to send the message that because your money goes further here, “you can accomplish your goals much quicker in San Antonio than other places,'” said Redmond, who moved to San Antonio from Los Angeles, which has a score of 149.5 on the index.
Home prices are often cited as a major factor in the lower cost of living here. According to San Antonio Board of Realtors’ monthly data, the median price of a home in San Antonio in March of this year was about $310,000. That’s down from March 2023’s median of $315,000, but it’s 31% higher than the median price in 2019, which was $227,000.
With rising home prices comes an increase in property taxes, which often erases any savings residents might feel from Texas not having an income tax.
As one Redditor wrote, “WA state (military). Owned a $550,000 home there and the note was $2,300 a month. Own a $300,000 home here with the same $2,300 note. Property taxes here are INSANE!!!”
But San Antonio home prices remain below the national average, and well below those in expensive cities. Almost 75% of homes on the market here in March were priced between $199,000 and $499,999, according to SABOR’s market statistics for March 2024.
At least two former Phoenix residents chimed in on the Reddit thread that housing costs were a big draw. “We bought a house for $255k here it would have been well over $400k in a decent area there,” wrote one.
Rents have risen over the past several years as well — although thanks to a recent glut of new apartments coming online, those prices may drop slightly.
SABOR’s March 2024 market stats list the average apartment rental at $1,820. Rental platform Zumper calculates the median rent “for all bedroom counts and property types” in San Antonio at $1,550, which it calls 22% lower than the national average.
Wages are often lower, too
But San Antonio is also a city where wages are often commensurately lower than in other places.
As of May 2022, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, San Antonio’s “mean hourly wages” were 13% lower than the U.S. average. That disparity was higher in certain sectors.
“Healthcare support” wages were 18% lower, “business and financial operations” were 14% lower and “arts, design, entertainment, sports, and media” were 26% lower than the U.S. average.
Earnings are starting to rise in San Antonio in certain sectors, said Adrian Castillo of Greater:SATX. In gathering data for its 2024 Greater Workforce Outlook, it found accountants and auditors earn more than the national average here, as do management analysts in the warehousing and transportation sector.
The median household income in San Antonio is $59,593, compared to $74,580 for the U.S., according to the U.S. Census Bureau. A household is between 2-3 people. Expanding out to San Antonio’s metropolitan statistical area, which includes New Braunfels, the median income jumps to $70,910.
Meanwhile, the city’s poverty rate has remained “stagnant,” per San Antonio’s latest poverty report, with almost 18% of the population unable to meet their basic needs. That’s compared to the national average of 11.5%.
Last month, the results of a study from financial advising platform SmartAsset made the rounds in local media that calculated the salary necessary to “live comfortably” in San Antonio in 2024, using data from MIT’s Living Wage Calculator and a 50/30/20 spending model: 50% of wages on housing, groceries and transportation; 30% on “wants” like entertainment and hobbies and 20% to pay off debt, save or invest.
San Antonio clocked in 24th of 99 cities, with a single person needing an hourly wage of $40.90 or a salary of $85,000 to live comfortably. That’s an increase of 43% from the previous year’s estimate of $59,270.
A family of four, the study found, would need $200,000 annually this year to live comfortably in San Antonio.
Affordable = good, cheap = bad
San Antonio is working hard to increase residents’ wages. Gone are the days when a call center was a celebrated economic win.
Greater:SATX is focused on bringing new businesses and expanding existing businesses in sectors that have the potential to bring with them well-paying jobs: the biosciences, financial services, cybersecurity, manufacturing, technology and aerospace.
It recently celebrated landing JCB, the Great Britain-based manufacturer expected to build a new plant on the South Side that will support at least 1,580 new full-time jobs. The company told local officials that 644 employees will make between $20.55 and $24.99 per hour. Another 702 will make between $25.00 and $29.99 per hour.
The city’s Ready to Work program, which promises to upskill residents to become qualified for good-paying, career-track jobs, reports that the median annual salary for the 773 people hired so far is $44,204. Health care is the top industry chosen by participants for training, followed by IT/cybersecurity and transportation and warehousing.
Jim Perschbach, CEO of Port San Antonio, which is home to a growing concentration of the city’s aerospace, cybersecurity and technology firms, believes that as San Antonio sells itself to the outside world, the city needs to be careful in its messaging.
“Being an affordable place to live is great. You want to be able to afford housing, food, luxuries, all that good stuff,” he said. “[But] there’s a difference between saying we’re an affordable place to live and we are a cheap place to do business, because a cheap place to do business puts downward pressure on salaries and wages.”
He praised Greater:SATX, and the local chambers of commerce, for getting better at making that distinction.
According to Greater:SATX’s data, the Life Works Greater campaign is resonating. In testing, it found that exposure to the campaign resulted in a 26 percentage point increase in people who would consider San Antonio as a place to live and work.
“That’s the story we’re telling,” said Redmond. “We’re not saying that it’s super cheap to live here. We’re just saying your dollar goes farther.”
