Amid escalating costs for housing, the income gap in Austin has widened almost as much as the Texas Panhandle's 20-mile Palo Duro Canyon. U.S. Census Bureau data compiled by the City of Austin for CultureMap shows a widening imbalance between household incomes, as the growth rate for high-earning households especially takes off.

At the lower end of the income spectrum, the number of households in every annual-income category from $0 to $74,999 declined. The $50,000-74,999 category dropped the least, losing 12 percent; and the $25,000-34,999 category lost 62 percent of its mass.

But the same data indicates that the number of Austin households with an annual income of at least $200,000 skyrocketed 284 percent from 2010-2023. The only other income bracket with a triple-digit growth rate during that period was $150,000-199,999, which grew by 148 percent.

The number of households with annual incomes of $75,000-99,999 rose 9 percent from 2010 to 2023, and the number of households with annual income ranging from $100,000-149,999 climbed 59 percent.

The data covers income only for households within Austin’s city limits and not for the entire Austin metro area.

Lila Valencia, the City of Austin’s demographer, explains that these shifts can't just be attributed to the same Austinites making more money over time. She says one reason for the income disparity is the loss of lower-income residents and the gain of higher-income residents.

Census Bureau figures, she said, “are no longer reflecting the incomes of the same people. In other words, we are reflecting the incomes of the changing population of Austin. We know that many Austinites continue to leave the city in search of more affordable housing or homeownership opportunities.”

Much of the exodus can be attributed to soaring home prices. In 2010, the typical home in the city sold for a median price of $229,000, according to Unlock MLS, a real estate listing service. This April, that figure stood at $595,000. That’s a 15-year jump of 160 percent.

Many of those moving out of Austin are Black and Hispanic or Latino residents, Valencia said. As of 2024, 7.5 percent of the city’s population was Black (down from 8.1 percent in 2010) and 32.2 percent was Hispanic or Latino (down from 35.1 percent in 2010), according to government data.

While lower-income households are losing traction in Austin, the number of higher-income households has been rising, driven in part by an influx of wealthier people from places like California.

“As out-of-state movers with higher incomes grow roots and stay in Austin and Austinites with lower incomes get priced out and move outside of the city,” Valencia says, “we will continue to see shifts in our household income statistics like median household income and income distributions.”

Overall income growth following the Great Recession has also contributed to a shift in Austin’s income numbers, according to Valencia.

Going forward, she says, the city’s household income data “will be made up of more and more newcomers to Austin and less and less of the Austinites of years past.”