That's Rich

Houston's richest rank high on new Forbes list of world's billionaires

Forbes has updated its eponymous billionaires list for 2017, and Texans make quite a showing among the Bill Gateses, Mark Zuckerbergs, and Warren Buffetts of the world.

Fort Worth-based Alice Walton, an heir to the Wal-Mart fortune and the current chairman of Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Arkansas, is the highest Lone Star State entrant at No. 17. Her $33.8 billion net worth is far and away the largest of any of the Texans on the global list.

Oil is the common denominator among Houston's richest. Richard Kinder, chairman and CEO of Kinder Morgan, and his $7 billion are No. 194; that's quite a jump in both ranking and net worth since last year. Dannine Avara, Scott Duncan, Milane Frantz, and Randa Williams, the heirs of oilman Dan Duncan, are all tied at No. 261 with $5.7 billion.

Other Houston billionaires include oilman Jeffery Hildebrand (No. 402 with $4.3 billion), car distributor Dan Friedkin (No. 522 with $3.6 billion), Texans owner Robert McNair (No. 544 with $3.5 billion), philanthropist John Arnold (No 660 with $3 billion), entrepreneur Tilman Fertitta (No. 693 with $2.9 billion), oilman George Bishop (No. 814 with $2.5 billion), Houston Rockets owner Leslie Alexander (No. 1,098 with $1.9 billion), and investor Fayez Sarofim (No. 1,290 with $1.6 billion).

Austin's Michael Dell, chairman and CEO of Dell computers, is No. 38 with his $20.4 billion, which is thanks in part to the approximately $60 billion merger between Dell and computer storage giant EMC that closed in September 2016.

The self-made banking mogul Andrew Beal (No. 127, net worth of $10.4 billion); investor Robert Rowling (No. 234, net worth of $6.2 billion); and Trevor Rees-Jones (No. 294, net worth of $5.3 billion) are Dallas' highest entrants. Beal and Rees-Jones have each slipped a bit in the rankings since last year, though Rowlings made a big jump from No. 286.

Other big Texas names on the list include Jerry Jones ($5.2 billion), Ray Lee Hunt ($4.8 billion), Robert Bass ($4 billion), H. Ross Perot Sr. ($4 billion), Mark Cuban ($3.4 billion), John Paul DeJoria ($3.1 billion), and W. Herbert Hunt ($2 billion).

Richard Kinder is the richest Houstonian on the list, with a net worth of $7 billion, Forbes reports

News_King Tut_premiere_October 2011_Nancy Kinder_Richard Kinder

Photo by Gary Fountain

Richard Kinder is the richest Houstonian on the list, with a net worth of $7 billion, Forbes reports

forbes rankings texas

Jobs report

Texas clocks in as No. 7 best state to find a job, new report says

Photo by The Jopwell Collection on Unsplash

It's easier to find a job in Texas than in nearly any other state.

If you’re hunting for a job in Texas amid a tough employment market, you stand a better chance of landing it here than you might in other states.

A new ranking by personal finance website WalletHub of the best states for jobs puts Texas at No. 7. The Lone Star State lands at No. 2 in the economic environment category and No. 18 in the job market category.

Massachusetts tops the list, and West Virginia appears at the bottom.

To determine the most attractive states for employment, WalletHub compared the 50 states across 34 key indicators of economic health and job market strength. Ranking factors included employment growth, median annual income, and average commute time.

“Living in one of the best states for jobs can provide stable conditions for the long term, helping you ride out the fluctuations that the economy will experience in the future,” WalletHub analyst Chip Lupo says.

In September, Gov. Greg Abbott announced Texas led the U.S. in job creation with the addition of 195,600 jobs over the past 12 months.

While Abbott proclaimed Texas is “America’s jobs leader,” the state’s level of job creation has recently slowed. In June, the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas noted that the state’s year-to-date job growth rate had dipped to 1.8 percent, and that even slower job growth was expected in the second half of this year.

The August unemployment rate in Texas stood at 4.1 percent, according to the Texas Workforce Commission. Throughout 2025, the monthly rate in Texas has been either four percent or 4.1 percent.

By comparison, the U.S. unemployment rate in August was 4.3 percent, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. In 2025, the monthly rate for the U.S. has ranged from 4 percent to 4.3 percent.

Here’s a rundown of the August unemployment rates in Texas’ four biggest metro areas:

Austin — 3.9 percent
Dallas-Fort Worth — 4.4 percent
San Antonio — 4.4 percent
Houston — 5 percent

Unemployment rates have remained steady this year despite layoffs and hiring freezes driven by economic uncertainty. However, the number of U.S. workers who’ve been without a job for at least 27 weeks has risen by 385,000 this year, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in August. That month, long-term unemployed workers accounted for about one-fourth of all unemployed workers.

An August survey by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York showed a record-low 44.9 percent of Americans were confident about finding a job if they lost their current one.

This story originally was published on our sister site, InnovationMap.

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