Joplin vs Texarkana
Metro-area medians — Joplin, MO-KS Metro Area vs Texarkana, TX-AR Metro Area — not the cities proper.
Joplin comes out ahead, winning 6 of the 8 clearly-decided measures.
Joplin and Texarkana cost about the same to live in, but Joplin households earn about 8% more. Adjusted for local prices, a typical paycheck stretches further in Joplin.
For your salary & household
Enter your pay and household size to see what it's really worth here — the numbers update live and the link stays shareable.
On $75,000 for just you, Texarkana leaves you about $4,496/yr better off after tax and local prices.
Take-home estimates a single filer taking the standard deduction (2025 federal brackets, FICA, and state income tax) and isn't tax advice. “Real value” rebases take-home to average U.S. prices using the BEA cost-of-living index; the per-person figure uses the OECD square-root equivalence scale.
Choose Joplin for
- + Livability (CityLedger)
- + Cost-adjusted income (pay's real value)
- + Median household income
- + Unemployment
- + Bachelor's degree or higher
- + Air quality (median AQI)
Joplin vs Texarkana — frequently asked
- Is Joplin cheaper than Texarkana?
- They are about even — the overall cost of living in the Joplin and Texarkana metros is within 3% of each other (BEA Regional Price Parities), so neither is meaningfully cheaper.
- Which has higher household income, Joplin or Texarkana?
- Joplin has the higher median household income — $62,796 versus $58,000 (U.S. Census Bureau, ACS), about 8% more.
- Does a paycheck go further in Joplin or Texarkana?
- A paycheck stretches further in Joplin. Adjusted for local prices, the median income is worth $73,259 there versus $69,038 in Texarkana.
- Which has cheaper rent, Joplin or Texarkana?
- Texarkana has cheaper rent — a median of $939/mo versus $1,001/mo (U.S. Census Bureau, ACS).