Southwest Economy Archive

• April 15, 2026
  Texas homeowners pay high insurance costs, face rising premiums

  Mariam Yousuf

  Home insurance premiums have risen dramatically in the postpandemic years, with the median Texas homeowner paying 60 percent more for home insurance in 2024 compared with 2019, American Community Survey data show.
• April 10, 2026
  Is the system failing when hard work, education not enough?
  Gary Hoover, author of "Ladder or Lottery: Economic Promises and the Reality of Who Gets Ahead," discusses why some people who follow the rules for getting ahead instead fall behind.
• April 8, 2026
  Ciudad Juarez retools amid job losses

  Isabel Brizuela, Jesus Cañas, Luis Torres and Diego Morales-Burnett

  Ciudad Juarez, across the Rio Grande from El Paso, lost nearly one-fifth of its manufacturing jobs over a two-year period. The decline reflects the city’s move into higher value-added, less labor-intensive production of electronics and hardware demanded for the U.S.’s burgeoning data center build-out.
• April 1, 2026
  Region’s commercial space exploration industry has lofty goals for growth, discovery

  Isabel Dhillon, Ethan Dixon, Isaiah Spellman and Pia Orrenius

  Texas' booming private space industry is making access to space broader and cheaper than ever before.
• March 23, 2026
  Texas multifamily housing yet to stabilize; downside risks remain

  Laila Assanie, Lorenzo Garza and Kelly Klemme

  A fair amount of excess supply remains in some markets, and new properties are facing longer lease-up timelines.
• February 27, 2026
  Construction firms navigate cost, demand challenges in postpandemic era
  Ken Simonson, chief economist for the Associated General Contractors of America, discusses the state of commercial construction in Texas and the U.S., including ongoing office and data center activity.
• February 20, 2026
  Texas job growth expected to pick up following flat 2025

  Robert Leigh and Pia Orrenius

  Texas economic output grew in 2025 but did so with near-zero job growth. The last time that happened was in 2002–03, when the state emerged from the dot-com bust into an extended jobless recovery.
• January 16, 2026
  Mexican residents favor local retailers over cross-border shopping in Texas

  Isabel Brizuela, Jesus Cañas and Robert Leigh

  Despite a relatively stable peso-dollar exchange rate that would normally favor shopping in the U.S., Mexican consumers increasingly stay closer to home.
• January 7, 2026
  Higher interest rates transform housing market, Texas real estate workforce

  Samuel Dodini, Jeanna Kenney, Kamran Haq and Isabel Dhillon

  A pandemic-era period of relatively low interest rates and rising house prices drew a record number of new real estate agents to the field. Home prices have since remained high, but elevated interest rates and slowing sales have made the industry less attractive.
• December 12, 2025
  Texas electricity providers draw on variety of sources
  Jim Burke, president and chief executive officer of Vistra Corp., the largest competitive power producer in the country, discusses the outlook for electric power generation in Texas as data centers and artificial intelligence demands are expected to reframe the business.