Craig Douglas
Managing editor/online vertical products and research- Boston Business Journal
What’s the best way to rank the wealthiest communities in Massachusetts? Let me count the ways.
To be sure, there are more ways than one to take stock of the cities and towns with the most millionaires next door, with each measuring stick offering its own set of varied results. Whether one methodology is more accurate or relevant than the next is anyone’s guess.
- Below, search the BBJ’s database of Massachusetts millionaires to see where your town or city ranks.
What’s for certain is that Greater Boston’s leafy suburbs to the west are among the state’s wealthiest, no matter how you slice it. Based on state tax data on millionaire filers in 2010, towns such as Weston, Wellesley, Newton and Concord consistently rank high among the wealthiest communities in the Bay State, regardless of how the numbers are crunched. No surprise there, although the results do highlight some sleeper communities with more millionaire residents than one might expect.
On an aggregate level, the Department of Revenue said some 10,358 Massachusetts filers reported income of at least $1 million in 2010, with their total reported income coming in at a whopping $36.6 billion. To put that total earnings number in perspective, it averages out to around $3.5 million per filer and is approximately 12 percent greater than the state’s fiscal 2013 budget signed into law by Gov. Deval Patrick earlier this year.
On a per capita basis, Weston tops the list with a millionaire filer for every 27 residents. Not to be outdone, Wellesley has by far the tightest cluster of millionaires, packing in 59 such filers for every square mile in town. Boston and Newton rank Nos. 1 and 2 when it comes to total millionaires, respectively recording 1,330 and 856 seven-digit filers in 2010. And the communities with the highest-earning millionaires of all? One need look no further than the industrial hub of Lowell, where the city’s 11 millionaire filers averaged $14.1 million in reported income in 2010.
Real estate