Houston isn’t in a recession, but locals are starting to feel like they’re living through one.
According to the 45th Kinder Houston Area Survey, released Monday, residents across the region reported a dramatically dimmer outlook on job opportunities, rising financial stress and growing anxiety about affordability in the metro area.
The annual survey is the nation’s longest-running snapshot of the attitudes and experiences of residents in a major metro area. About 8,800 adults in Harris, Fort Bend and Montgomery counties participated in January and February, answering an array of questions about the local economy, the environment and social connectedness, among other topics. The survey results are weighted to reflect the demographics of Houston.
This article is part of a series exploring the 45th Kinder Houston Area Survey. Subscribe to the Urban Edge newsletter for future stories in this series.
This year, the souring economic mood emerged as the most prominent finding. For the first time since 2022, the economy overtook crime as the most-cited “biggest problem” facing metro Houston. Optimism about local job prospects also plummeted to its lowest point in nearly 15 years among Harris County residents, with similar year-over-year declines in Fort Bend and Montgomery counties.
Historically, such a downturn in residents’ mood about the economy and jobs market coincided with a sharp economic slump, such as the 1980s oil bust or Great Recession.
Over the past several years, Houstonians have endured stretches of high inflation, rising costs of housing and slowing jobs growth.
In other ways, though, there’s a disconnect between local economic indicators and residents’ experiences. Unemployment remains low, wages continue to rise and inflation has cooled over the past two years.
Dan Potter, director of the Kinder Institute’s Houston Population Research Center and co-author of the survey, said frustrations with the cost of living and a cooling job market are likely driving local economic pessimism — even without a major economic shock.
“This is nearly unprecedented to see this level of change from one year to the next in people’s views on the economy and, in particular, job opportunities,” Potter said. “The thing that’s alarming to us is that there’s no big economic event preceding it, yet these sentiments are real.”
Down on the market
Across multiple survey questions, Houstonians signaled their dissatisfaction with the local economy and labor landscape.
The share of Houston residents rating local job opportunities as “good” or “excellent” fell from 70% last year to 42% this year, the second-steepest year-over-year decline in the survey’s history. The record drop, from 1982 to 1983, followed the collapse of Houston’s oil industry.
Harris County residents were least optimistic about local job prospects, with 40% of them rating them good or excellent, the lowest share since 2011. About 44% of Fort Bend County residents and 48% of respondents in Montgomery County viewed local job opportunities positively, their lowest levels on record. (Residents of both counties were surveyed in 2012 through 2018 and the past two years.)
When asked to name the biggest issue facing Houston, one-quarter of survey participants cited the economy, up from 16% last year. Crime and traffic have historically topped the list, with the economy taking first following major economic shocks.
Crime ranked second this year (20%), followed by the cost of housing (13%) and traffic (12%).
Colin Baker, manager of economic research for the Greater Houston Partnership, said the shifting attitudes may reflect a loss of economic momentum in 2025, which he called “below average by a lot of different metrics.” While Houston’s economy remains more resilient than other metro areas, a local and national hiring slowdown could be shaping the outlook.
“People are reacting to real national trends, and they are feeling real things that have played out in the course of the national economy,” Baker said. “When you're not adding jobs, that creates all sorts of friction in the way people perceive their economic livelihood.”
While Houstonians broadly viewed the economy and labor market as worsening, signals about personal finance were more mixed.
About 26% of respondents said their household was better off financially than a year ago, compared to 21% who reported being worse off. The remaining group described their status as about the same.
Residents of households earning less than $25,000 were roughly twice as likely (33%) to say they were worse off than those in households earning more than $150,000 (15%)
The share of residents reporting they’re “finding it difficult to get by” or “just getting by” rose across every income bracket between 2025 and 2026, with the largest increases reported by lower- and middle-income respondents.
Residents in those two income brackets also said they’re having more difficulty paying for emergency expenses compared to last year.
The share of residents in households earning under $25,000 who said they would need to borrow money or could not cover an unexpected $400 bill rose from 72% to 79%. For households earning $50,000 to $99,999, the rate jumped from 30% to 39%.
A mixed economy
Houston’s economic pessimism belies a local market that’s neither booming nor busting.
The metro area’s unemployment rate has generally hovered between 4% and 5% over the past few years, well below the rates seen during the pandemic and Great Recession.
Houston’s job market also continues to grow, albeit at a slowing rate and with mixed results across sectors.
After adding more than 100,000 jobs in 2023, the net increases slipped to 49,500 in 2024 and about 17,500 last year, according to a Greater Houston Partnership analysis of Texas Workforce Commission data.
The construction and health care sectors served as Houston’s primary jobs engines in 2025, adding roughly 16,000 and 7,900 positions, respectively. The energy, retail, financial and professional, scientific and technical services sectors each lost roughly 2,000 to 3,500 jobs.
While inflation drove up the cost of housing, food and other expenses over the past several years, wages have generally kept up at a similar pace over time. Many residents aren’t falling significantly behind financially, but they aren’t getting far ahead.
Potter said researchers will be watching to see if this year’s pessimistic outlook carries into 2027, particularly if Houston’s economy holds relatively steady.
“The concern is that whatever the heck is going on isn’t over,” Potter said. “Do we see a continuation of the outlook, especially around employment? Without knowing for sure what’s driving people to feel the way they do, it’s unclear to us at this point.”
