Updated April 2026 · U.S. Census Bureau data
New Jersey City Spending Rankings
New Jersey has 19 cities with 50,000 or more residents covered by CitySpend, totaling 1.9M in covered population. The average Fiscal Health Score across these cities is 55/100, sourced from the U.S. Census Bureau Annual Survey of State and Local Government Finances. New Jersey's covered cities post an average Fiscal Health Score of 55/100 (grade C), squarely in the middle of the national distribution. Some New Jersey 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.
New Jersey Fiscal Profile
Across all covered New Jersey cities, the largest aggregate spending categories are education at $20.7B and police at $1.0B. That mix reflects New Jersey'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 19 Cities in New Jersey
Newark, NJ
Pop. 307K
Jersey City, NJ
Pop. 288K
Paterson, NJ
Pop. 158K
Elizabeth, NJ
Pop. 136K
Toms River, NJ
Pop. 93K
Trenton, NJ
Pop. 90K
Clifton, NJ
Pop. 89K
Camden, NJ
Pop. 72K
Bayonne, NJ
Pop. 70K
Passaic, NJ
Pop. 70K
East Orange, NJ
Pop. 69K
Lakewood, NJ
Pop. 69K
Union City, NJ
Pop. 67K
Vineland, NJ
Pop. 61K
Hoboken, NJ
Pop. 59K
New Brunswick, NJ
Pop. 56K
Perth Amboy, NJ
Pop. 55K
Plainfield, NJ
Pop. 54K
West New York, NJ
Pop. 52K
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 New Jersey are covered by CitySpend?
CitySpend covers 19 cities in New Jersey with 50,000 or more residents, totaling 1.9M in population. Smaller municipalities, towns, and unincorporated areas are excluded from the dataset.
What is New Jersey's average Fiscal Health Score?
New Jersey's 19 covered cities post an average Fiscal Health Score of 55/100. 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 New Jersey 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 New Jersey cities have the strongest fiscal health?
Toms River (A), Jersey City (B), Vineland (B) rank among the top fiscal performers in New Jersey. Strong scores typically pair balanced budgets with low debt-per-capita and well-funded pensions. See the rankings below for the full list.
Which New Jersey cities are most fiscally stressed?
Lakewood (D), West New York (D), East Orange (D) rank toward the bottom of the New Jersey 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.
New Jersey has 19 cities with 50,000 or more residents covered by CitySpend, totaling 1.9M in covered population. The average Fiscal Health Score across these cities is 55/100, sourced from the U.S. Census Bureau Annual Survey of State and Local Government Finances. New Jersey's covered cities post an average Fiscal Health Score of 55/100 (grade C), squarely in the middle of the national distribution. Some New Jersey 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.
For this entity, the underlying data on this page comes from the Census Annual Survey of State and Local Government Finances. The breakdown above is the federal record; the paragraphs below add the per-entity context that makes the headline numbers usable for a real decision rather than just a data lookup.
Every number on this page links back to the Census Annual Survey of State and Local Government Finances; the methodology page describes the inputs, refresh cadence, and known limitations of the underlying data product.
Practical use of this page is in combination with the comparison and ranking pages elsewhere on the site, which surface the same data for this entity’s peers within U.S. cities, counties, and states. A single-entity reading without peer context can be misleading when an entity is an outlier on one axis but typical on another.