Massachusetts cities compared
All 6 Massachusetts metropolitan areas on the same $100,000 salary and the same $400,000 home. Barnstable Town leaves you $8,023 a year better off than Boston — and none of it is income tax, which is identical everywhere in the state.
Barnstable Town to Boston: $8,023 a year apart, same tax code
Massachusetts has 6 metropolitan areas with a published price index, and on $100,000 with a $400,000 home they are not interchangeable: $72,759 of purchasing power in Barnstable Town against $64,736 in Boston — $8,023 a year, 8.0% of the salary, without leaving the state.
That gap is unusually easy to trust, because the income tax is identical in every row. Federal $13,170, FICA $7,650, Massachusetts state income tax $4,780, and no county or city in Massachusetts levies its own. Two things move down this table and only two: what a house costs in property tax, and what everything costs at the till.
| Metropolitan area | Buys | Behind the best | Prices | Property tax |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1Barnstable Town | $72,759 | best | 98.351 | 0.71% |
| 2Pittsfield | $72,462 | −$297 | 95.106 | 1.37% |
| 3Springfield | $70,922 | −$1,837 | 96.061 | 1.57% |
| 4Amherst Town-Northampton | $68,371 | −$4,388 | 100.243 | 1.47% |
| 5Worcester | $67,369 | −$5,390 | 102.523 | 1.33% |
| 6Boston-Cambridge-Newton | $64,736 | −$8,023 | 108.266 | 1.08% |
Purchasing power on a $100,000 salary with a $400,000 home: take-home after federal, FICA, Massachusetts income tax and property tax, divided by that area’s price level. The income tax is identical in every row — the whole of the spread is property tax and the price level. Price index 100 is the US average.
3 of the 6 price above the national average and 3 below it — inside one state, under one tax code. A single state-level cost of living number averages that away and tells you about none of them.
Property tax runs from 0.71% in Barnstable Town to 1.57% in Springfield — on a $400,000 home that is $2,841 against $6,272 a year, a difference of $3,431. Each rate is that area's counties averaged and weighted by how many homes are in each, because a house pays the tax and a rural county of a few thousand homes should not weigh the same as an urban one of several hundred thousand.
The 15 Massachusetts comparisons, resolved
Every pair of Massachusetts cities, each on its own page with the full working, the break-even salary and the property tax bill house by house. Ordered by the population that could plausibly be choosing between them:
Boston vs Worcester — Worcester by $2,633 a year. Price level 108.266 against 102.523; property tax 1.08% against 1.33%.
Boston vs Springfield — Springfield by $6,186 a year. Price level 108.266 against 96.061; property tax 1.08% against 1.57%.
Barnstable Town vs Boston — Barnstable Town by $8,023 a year. Price level 98.351 against 108.266; property tax 0.71% against 1.08%.
Amherst Town vs Boston — Amherst Town by $3,635 a year. Price level 100.243 against 108.266; property tax 1.47% against 1.08%.
Boston vs Pittsfield — Pittsfield by $7,726 a year. Price level 108.266 against 95.106; property tax 1.08% against 1.37%.
Springfield vs Worcester — Springfield by $3,553 a year. Price level 96.061 against 102.523; property tax 1.57% against 1.33%.
Barnstable Town vs Worcester — Barnstable Town by $5,390 a year. Price level 98.351 against 102.523; property tax 0.71% against 1.33%.
Amherst Town vs Worcester — Amherst Town by $1,002 a year. Price level 100.243 against 102.523; property tax 1.47% against 1.33%.
Pittsfield vs Worcester — Pittsfield by $5,093 a year. Price level 95.106 against 102.523; property tax 1.37% against 1.33%.
Barnstable Town vs Springfield — Barnstable Town by $1,837 a year. Price level 98.351 against 96.061; property tax 0.71% against 1.57%.
Amherst Town vs Springfield — Springfield by $2,551 a year. Price level 100.243 against 96.061; property tax 1.47% against 1.57%.
Pittsfield vs Springfield — Pittsfield by $1,540 a year. Price level 95.106 against 96.061; property tax 1.37% against 1.57%.
Amherst Town vs Barnstable Town — Barnstable Town by $4,388 a year. Price level 100.243 against 98.351; property tax 1.47% against 0.71%.
Barnstable Town vs Pittsfield — Barnstable Town by $297 a year. Price level 98.351 against 95.106; property tax 0.71% against 1.37%.
Amherst Town vs Pittsfield — Pittsfield by $4,091 a year. Price level 100.243 against 95.106; property tax 1.47% against 1.37%.
Every Massachusetts city, and what it can be compared with
The areas themselves, largest first. Each line has what defines that city on the two measures that matter here, and then every comparison it takes part in:
Boston-Cambridge-Newton — 4.9m people across 7 counties. Price level 108.266, housing 148.424, property tax 1.08%. Compared with Worcester, Springfield, Barnstable Town, Amherst Town, Pittsfield.
Worcester — 862k people across 1 county. Price level 102.523, housing 113.001, property tax 1.33%. Compared with Boston, Springfield, Barnstable Town, Amherst Town, Pittsfield.
Springfield — 463k people across 1 county. Price level 96.061, housing 75.781, property tax 1.57%. Compared with Boston, Worcester, Barnstable Town, Amherst Town, Pittsfield.
Barnstable Town — 230k people across 1 county. Price level 98.351, housing 90.012, property tax 0.71%. Compared with Boston, Worcester, Springfield, Amherst Town, Pittsfield.
Amherst Town-Northampton — 157k people across 1 county. Price level 100.243, housing 97.537, property tax 1.47%. Compared with Boston, Worcester, Springfield, Barnstable Town, Pittsfield.
Pittsfield — 128k people across 1 county. Price level 95.106, housing 73.452, property tax 1.37%. Compared with Boston, Worcester, Springfield, Barnstable Town, Amherst Town.
The counties behind each rate
Nobody pays a metropolitan area's property tax rate. They pay their county's, and the figures above are those county rates averaged and weighted by how many homes each county holds. Opened up:
Boston averages 1.08% across 7 counties: Middlesex County 1.05%, Suffolk County 0.67%, Essex County 1.07%, Norfolk County 1.09%, Plymouth County 1.24%, Rockingham County 1.63%, Strafford County 1.98%. Inside the area the rate runs from 0.67% in Suffolk County to 1.98% in Strafford County, which is $5,257 a year on a $400,000 home — a real spread inside a single labour market.
Worcester averages 1.33% across 1 county: Worcester County 1.33%. One county, so the area rate is that county's rate exactly — no averaging involved.
Springfield averages 1.57% across 1 county: Hampden County 1.57%. One county, so the area rate is that county's rate exactly — no averaging involved.
Barnstable Town averages 0.71% across 1 county: Barnstable County 0.71%. One county, so the area rate is that county's rate exactly — no averaging involved.
Amherst Town averages 1.47% across 1 county: Hampshire County 1.47%. One county, so the area rate is that county's rate exactly — no averaging involved.
Pittsfield averages 1.37% across 1 county: Berkshire County 1.37%. One county, so the area rate is that county's rate exactly — no averaging involved.
Which is the limitation of every figure on this page, stated rather than buried: an area rate is an average, and your address decides what you actually pay. The county pages linked above carry the rate, the assessment basis and the source for each one.
Where Massachusetts cities sit among the 380 in the country
A state ranking answers "where in Massachusetts". It does not answer whether Massachusetts is an expensive place to begin with, and the two questions have different answers often enough to be worth separating.
Against all 380 metropolitan areas the Bureau of Economic Analysis prices, Boston ranks 19 and Pittsfield ranks 160, counting from the most expensive. The national median area sits at 93.492 — Monroe — so 6 of these 6 Massachusetts areas are dearer than the typical American metropolitan area and 0 are cheaper.
Boston is in the most expensive tenth of the country, which is worth knowing before reading its position in the state table as merely "the dear one".
The distinction matters for a specific reason. Everything on this page holds the income tax constant because these cities share a state; the moment a move crosses a state line that stops being true, and the comparison becomes the harder one — which is what Massachusetts against every other state is for.
The tax that is the same in all 6
Worth spelling out, because it is what makes the ranking above readable at all. On $100,000, in every one of these areas:
Federal income tax — $13,170. Set by Congress, identical everywhere in the United States.
Social Security and Medicare — $7,650. Also federal, and also flat across the country up to the Social Security ceiling.
Massachusetts income tax — $4,780. One set of brackets for the whole state, one standard deduction, applied identically in every city on this page.
Local income tax — $0. Massachusetts does not permit counties, cities or school districts to levy their own. That is not a modelling shortcut, it is the law, and it is the condition on which these pages get published: in the eleven states that do permit it, the levying jurisdictions do not line up with metropolitan areas and no honest rate can be assigned.
Which leaves property tax as the only tax in the whole comparison that moves — from $2,841 to $6,272 a year on the same $400,000 home — and the price level as the only other thing. Two variables, both measured, both sourced. It is as clean as a cost-of-living comparison gets.
The top of this table changes depending on whether you buy
A ranking built on one salary and one house value is worth exactly as much as its assumptions, so here are the same 6 areas resolved again with those assumptions changed.
Renting, with no property tax at all: Pittsfield moves to the top, ahead of Barnstable Town. Property tax is what was holding the order in place, which means a renter and a buyer looking at the same two cities should reach different answers.
On $60,000 instead of $100,000: Barnstable Town still leads. The gap narrows to $5,528 — smaller in dollars, but a larger share of a smaller salary.
On $250,000: Pittsfield leads. At this income the property tax on a $400,000 home is close to noise and the price level decides everything.
This is the same discipline applied to a single published figure elsewhere on this site: a number without its range is half a number. Every page linked above lets you set your own salary, your own house and your own horizon, and recomputes the whole comparison rather than scaling it.
How this is worked out, and what it does not claim
Every row is the same calculation: gross salary in, federal income tax and FICA out, Massachusetts income tax out, property tax on a $400,000 home out — then what is left divided by that area's price level, so the figure is what the money buys rather than what the payslip says.
The price index is the Bureau of Economic Analysis Regional Price Parity, 2024, published per metropolitan area with a documented method and broken into housing, goods, utilities and services. Which counties make up each area comes from the Census Bureau delineation file, joined by CBSA code and never by name — there are thirty "Washington County" in the United States and a join on names would have failed silently.
US Bureau of Economic Analysis — Regional Price Parities by State and Metro Area, 2024 (released 19 February 2026) — read 2026-09-10. https://www.bea.gov/data/prices-inflation/regional-price-parities-state-and-metro-area
US Census Bureau — Core Based Statistical Areas delineation file, 2023 (which counties form each metropolitan area) — read 2026-09-10. https://www.census.gov/geographies/reference-files/time-series/demo/metro-micro/delineation-files.html
US Census Bureau, American Community Survey — county effective property tax rates and housing units — read 2026-08-31. https://data.census.gov/
What it does not claim: that the city at the top is the better place to live. This measures what a salary buys. Schools, the commute, the weather and how far you are from your family are not in it, and on a move inside one state they are usually what actually decides it.
It also assumes one salary, one house value and a buyer rather than a renter. Every page linked above lets you change all three, and the answer moves with them — on some pairs enough to change which city comes out ahead.
Where to go next
Questions
- Which city in Massachusetts leaves you best off?
- Barnstable Town, at $72,759 of purchasing power on $100,000 with a $400,000 home — $8,023 a year more than Boston at the other end of the table. Because the income tax is identical everywhere in Massachusetts, that ranking is made of two things only: the price level and property tax.
- Which is the cheapest city in Massachusetts?
- Pittsfield, at 95.106 on the Bureau of Economic Analysis price index where 100 is the US average, against 108.266 in Boston. Cheapest is not the same as best off, though: property tax is set separately and can move a household by $1,171 a year on the same house.
- Does income tax differ between cities in Massachusetts?
- No. Massachusetts sets one set of brackets for the whole state, and it does not let counties or cities levy their own income tax. On $100,000 the bill is federal $13,170, FICA $7,650 and state $4,780 in every one of these 6 areas. That is what makes comparing them clean.
- How much does cost of living vary inside Massachusetts?
- From 95.106 to 108.266 on the price index — 13.2 points between Pittsfield and Boston. In take-home terms that is $8,023 a year of purchasing power on the same salary.
- How many Massachusetts city comparisons are there?
- 15, one page each, every pair of the 6 metropolitan areas the Bureau of Economic Analysis prices in Massachusetts. Each resolves the same way — income tax, property tax and price level — and each shows the break-even salary in both directions.