Updated April 2026 · U.S. Census Bureau data
Massachusetts City Spending Rankings
Massachusetts has 25 cities with 50,000 or more residents covered by CitySpend, totaling 2.7M in covered population. The average Fiscal Health Score across these cities is 44/100, sourced from the U.S. Census Bureau Annual Survey of State and Local Government Finances. Massachusetts's covered cities post an average Fiscal Health Score of 44/100 (grade C), squarely in the middle of the national distribution. Some Massachusetts cities are running clean books and adequately funded pensions; others are showing strain on debt service or pension contributions. The split is visible in the rankings below.
Massachusetts Fiscal Profile
Across all covered Massachusetts cities, the largest aggregate spending categories are education at $83.5B and fire protection at $1.6B. That mix reflects Massachusetts's overall service-delivery model, in some states police and fire dominate; in others, education or roads take the largest aggregate share when cities operate their own school districts.
Healthiest and Most Stressed Cities
Top Fiscal Performers
Most Fiscally Stressed
All 25 Cities in Massachusetts
Boston, MA
Pop. 666K
Worcester, MA
Pop. 204K
Springfield, MA
Pop. 155K
Cambridge, MA
Pop. 118K
Lowell, MA
Pop. 115K
Brockton, MA
Pop. 105K
Quincy, MA
Pop. 101K
Lynn, MA
Pop. 101K
New Bedford, MA
Pop. 101K
Fall River, MA
Pop. 94K
Newton, MA
Pop. 88K
Lawrence, MA
Pop. 88K
Somerville, MA
Pop. 80K
Framingham, MA
Pop. 72K
Haverhill, MA
Pop. 67K
Malden, MA
Pop. 65K
Waltham, MA
Pop. 65K
Brookline, MA
Pop. 63K
Medford, MA
Pop. 62K
Revere, MA
Pop. 61K
Taunton, MA
Pop. 59K
Weymouth, MA
Pop. 57K
Chicopee, MA
Pop. 55K
Peabody, MA
Pop. 54K
Methuen, MA
Pop. 53K
How These Rankings Are Calculated
City Fiscal Health Scores combine budget balance and reserves (25%), debt burden per capita (20%), pension funded ratio (20%), spending efficiency (15%), revenue diversity (10%), and three-year trend direction (10%). All inputs come from the U.S. Census Bureau Annual Survey of State and Local Government Finances. For the largest cities, we cross-reference the Lincoln Institute's Fiscally Standardized Cities database to adjust for school-district and county overlap. Pension data comes from the Public Plans Database. Best-practice weighting follows guidance from the Government Finance Officers Association (GFOA). Read the full methodology.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many cities in Massachusetts are covered by CitySpend?
CitySpend covers 25 cities in Massachusetts with 50,000 or more residents, totaling 2.7M in population. Smaller municipalities, towns, and unincorporated areas are excluded from the dataset.
What is Massachusetts's average Fiscal Health Score?
Massachusetts's 25 covered cities post an average Fiscal Health Score of 44/100. The score combines budget balance and reserves, debt burden per capita, pension funding, spending efficiency, revenue diversity, and three-year trend direction. Each city is benchmarked against population peers, so a 200,000-resident city is compared to other mid-size cities, not against the largest cities in the country.
Where does Massachusetts city spending data come from?
Every figure on this page is drawn from the U.S. Census Bureau Annual Survey of State and Local Government Finances, with population estimates from the American Community Survey. For the largest cities, we cross-reference the Lincoln Institute's Fiscally Standardized Cities database to adjust for school-district overlap. Federal grant flows come from USASpending.gov; pension data, where available, comes from the Public Plans Database.
Which Massachusetts cities have the strongest fiscal health?
Worcester (C), Boston (C), Cambridge (C) rank among the top fiscal performers in Massachusetts. Strong scores typically pair balanced budgets with low debt-per-capita and well-funded pensions. See the rankings below for the full list.
Which Massachusetts cities are most fiscally stressed?
Chicopee (F), Malden (F), Taunton (F) rank toward the bottom of the Massachusetts fiscal health distribution. Common stress signals include pension underfunding, elevated debt service, and revenue concentration in a single tax source. A low score is a screening signal, not a verdict, always read the city's audited Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (ACFR) before drawing conclusions.
Massachusetts has 25 cities with 50,000 or more residents covered by CitySpend, totaling 2.7M in covered population. The average Fiscal Health Score across these cities is 44/100, sourced from the U.S. Census Bureau Annual Survey of State and Local Government Finances. Massachusetts's covered cities post an average Fiscal Health Score of 44/100 (grade C), squarely in the middle of the national distribution. Some Massachusetts cities are running clean books and adequately funded pensions; others are showing strain on debt service or pension contributions. The split is visible in the rankings below.
this entity is one of the data points covered by this site’s U.S. municipal and county government finances dataset. The detail above comes directly from the Census Annual Survey of State and Local Government Finances; the context that follows situates the headline numbers against the broader distribution across U.S. cities, counties, and states.
The methodology behind every numeric value on this page is publicly documented on the the Census Annual Survey of State and Local Government Finances portal and described in detail on this site’s methodology page. Refresh cadence varies by underlying series; the page surfaces the as-of date for each number so readers can trace any figure back to the source release.
For readers using this page as a decision input, the related-entity pages elsewhere on the site provide the comparison set. The most useful comparison for this entity is typically a peer within U.S. cities, counties, and states with similar size, similar exposure, or similar geography — not the national-level summary alone.