Housing in Fall River costs far less than in most of Massachusetts. But add up what a young family can’t do without – healthcare, housing, utilities, child care, groceries, a car and a phone – and the bill comes to far more than most households in the city earn.
A Fall River Reporter review of state, federal and city data finds that two parents renting a two-bedroom apartment, with a young child in a child care center, face about $70,600 a year in those seven costs. Buying a median-priced home pushes the total to about $93,800. The city’s median household income was $63,827 in 2025, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Healthcare: $34,000 indirect cost, $11,900 direct cost per family
Healthcare for a Massachusetts family topped $34,000 in 2025, or nearly $3,000 a month, the state’s Health Policy Commission said this week. That counts premiums plus copays, deductibles and other out-of-pocket costs. The commission did not break the figure down by city.
Employers pay most of that. The typical Massachusetts worker with family coverage paid $7,501 of a $29,619 premium in 2025, according to KFF. Add about $4,400 in copays, deductibles and other out-of-pocket costs, and a family pays roughly $11,900 a year directly. That is the figure used in the totals below, since every other cost here is what families pay themselves.
Housing: $20,700 to rent, $30,900 to buy
A family looking for a two-bedroom apartment in the Fall River area can expect to pay about $1,729 a month including utilities, or $20,748 a year. That is the federal government’s 2026 Fair Market Rent for the area, set by HUD, and it is up 7.1% from $1,614 last year. HUD sets it at the price of a modest unit for a family moving now, and it covers the Providence–Fall River area.
Renters who have stayed put pay less. The median Fall River renter paid $1,439 a month in 2025, according to the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, compared with $1,962 statewide. That figure includes long-held and subsidized apartments of all sizes.
Homes in the city sold for a median of $475,000 over the three months ending in October, about the same as a year earlier, according to Redfin. That figure covers all home types, including the multifamily houses common in Fall River. There were 157 sales in October, up from 143 a year earlier.
At the average 30-year mortgage rate of 7.18% in early November, according to Freddie Mac, a buyer who puts 20% down – $95,000 – on a $475,000 home would pay about $2,574 a month in principal and interest, or $30,891 a year. Property taxes and insurance would add to that.
Utilities: about $5,400 a year for homeowners
HUD’s rent figure already includes utilities, so renters’ heat, electricity and water are counted in the rent above. Homeowners pay them on top of the mortgage, and this winter they are climbing.
- Electricity: National Grid estimates a typical November bill of $259.54 for 600 kilowatt-hours, up from $226.26 a year earlier, the Daily Hampshire Gazette reported. Over a year that is about $3,100.
- Heat: A Northeast household heating with natural gas is expected to spend about $879 from November through March, down 14% from last winter, according to a U.S. Energy Information Administration forecast summarized by the Northeast Gas Association. Oil heat is far costlier: heating oil averaged $6.21 a gallon in Massachusetts in early November, up from about $3.63 a year earlier, according to state energy officials cited by the Gazette, and EIA expects oil-heated households nationally to spend about $2,115 this winter.
- Water and sewer: At the city’s current rates – $4.24 per hundred cubic feet for water and $8.11 for sewer, plus a quarterly meter fee and stormwater fee – a family of three using a typical 71,000 gallons a year would pay about $1,430.
Together that is about $5,400 a year, or $450 a month, for a gas-heated home. An oil-heated home could pay $1,000 or more on top of that.
Child care: $19,100
Full-time child care for one child in Bristol County costs about $19,120 a year, according to MIT’s Living Wage Calculator, updated in February 2026. Care for an infant, the most expensive age, may cost more.
Other measures put local prices in the same range. The U.S. Department of Labor’s National Database of Childcare Prices put the Bristol County median for infant center care at $352 a week, or about $18,300 a year, in 2022. Statewide, center-based infant care averaged $26,343 a year in early 2025, according to Child Care Aware of America, a figure pulled up by Boston-area prices.
Property tax and insurance: $7,560 for homeowners
Buyers also owe property tax and homeowners insurance, which aren’t part of the mortgage payment above. The Fall River City Council voted 8-1 on Nov. 10 to keep shifting as much of the tax burden as the law allows onto businesses, which leaves the estimated fiscal 2027 residential rate at about $11.47 per $1,000 of value, one cent below this year’s, Fall River Reporter reported. At that rate, a $475,000 home would owe about $5,448 a year.
A lower rate doesn’t mean a lower bill. The median single-family assessment rose about 3.5%, to $419,477, so the typical homeowner’s bill would rise about $160, to roughly $4,811, by our calculation.
Homeowners insurance in Massachusetts averaged $2,112 a year in 2026, up 43% from $1,478 in 2025 – the biggest jump of any state – according to an Insurance.com analysis. Renters’ property tax and insurance costs are built into their rent.
Groceries: $9,600
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s low-cost food plan, a modest home-cooked grocery budget, comes to about $797 a month for two adults and a 1-year-old in September 2026, or about $9,563 a year, according to the USDA’s monthly cost-of-food report. That doesn’t include formula and diapers, which can add more than $1,000 a year for a baby.
Getting around: $7,300 for one car
Few Fall River families get by without a car. Owning and running one, not counting a car payment or the car’s loss in value, costs about $7,250 a year at 15,000 miles: $2,595 for gas, $2,098 for insurance, $1,755 for maintenance and tires, and $802 for registration, license and taxes, according to AAA’s 2026 Your Driving Costs study. Families with two working parents often need two cars.
Phone and internet: $2,100
A cell phone for each parent and home internet cost a two-adult household in Bristol County about $2,086 a year, according to MIT’s Living Wage Calculator.
Adding it up
For two parents with one young child in center care, the seven costs total about $70,600 a year for renters and $93,800 for buyers. The renter total is more than the city’s median household income of $63,827 and about 89% of its median family income of $79,359, according to the Census Bureau’s 2025 American Community Survey.
| Yearly cost | Renting a two-bedroom | Buying a median home |
|---|---|---|
| Healthcare (paid directly by the family) | $11,882 | $11,882 |
| Housing | $20,748 (HUD 2026 Fair Market Rent) | $30,891 (mortgage, 20% down) |
| Property tax and insurance | Included in rent | $7,560 |
| Utilities | Included in rent | $5,425 |
| Child care | $19,120 | $19,120 |
| Groceries | $9,563 | $9,563 |
| One car (no car payment) | $7,250 | $7,250 |
| Phone and internet | $2,086 | $2,086 |
| Total | $70,649 | $93,777 |
| Share of median household income ($63,827) | 111% | 147% |
| Share of median family income ($79,359) | 89% | 118% |
Counting the full $34,000 cost of family health coverage, including the roughly $22,100 employers pay, the totals rise to about $92,800 for renters and $115,900 for buyers.
An independent estimate goes further. MIT’s Living Wage Calculator says two working parents with one child in Bristol County need $93,864 a year after taxes – $111,734 before taxes – to cover basic needs, including clothing, household items and other costs not counted here. Its estimate of their health costs, $11,716 a year, is close to ours. That works out to $26.86 an hour for each parent, working full time. Massachusetts’ minimum wage is $15.
In practice, many lower-income families don’t pay these full prices. Some qualify for MassHealth, the state’s Medicaid program, SNAP food benefits or state child care financial assistance, and others rely on relatives for care or share housing. But for a family paying market prices, the cheaper rent in Fall River does not close the gap with the city’s lower incomes. And these totals still leave out clothing, household supplies, savings and income taxes.
A note on the numbers
- Different sources and years. Healthcare is a 2025 statewide average, rent is HUD’s 2026 estimate, utilities, groceries and car costs are 2026 estimates, income is a 2025 Census estimate for the city, child care is a 2026 county estimate, and home prices and mortgage rates are from fall 2026. Together they show the scale of costs for a young family, not a precise budget for any one household.
- Healthcare is what a family with employer coverage pays directly: KFF’s average worker share of a family premium ($7,501, 2025) plus out-of-pocket costs, estimated as the gap between the Health Policy Commission’s $34,000 total family cost and its $29,619 average premium. The employer’s share is not counted. No Fall River figure is available.
- Rent in the totals is HUD’s fiscal 2026 Fair Market Rent for a two-bedroom in the Providence–Fall River area, which includes utilities and reflects what a family moving now would pay for a modest unit. The area includes Providence, so Fall River alone may run a bit lower. The Census median ($1,439 in 2025, margin of error ±$194) is lower because it includes long-held and subsidized units of all sizes.
- Home price is Redfin’s median for all home types over three months. The mortgage is our calculation: 20% down, a 30-year fixed loan at 7.18%, before taxes and insurance.
- Child care is MIT’s 2026 Bristol County estimate for full-time care for one child. MIT does not say which age it assumes; infant care usually costs the most. The state pays Southeast-region centers $105.53 a day for subsidized infants (fiscal 2026), about $27,400 a year, but that is a provider reimbursement rate, not a price families pay.
- Median household income covers all households, including single people and retirees. Median family income covers households of related people. Both are survey estimates with wide margins of error for a city this size: ±$9,480 for household income and ±$16,698 for family income. The 2024 estimates were lower ($50,778 and $66,964).
- Utilities for homeowners are our estimate for a gas-heated home: 12 months at National Grid’s typical November bill for 600 kWh (rates change in February), EIA’s Northeast natural gas heating forecast for November–March, and city water, sewer, meter and one stormwater unit for 95 hundred cubic feet a year (three people at 65 gallons a day). Gas used outside the heating season, and internet and phone, are not included.
- Property tax applies the estimated FY2027 residential rate ($11.47, pending state certification) to the median sale price; actual bills use assessed value, which may differ. Insurance is a statewide average for a $300,000-dwelling policy.
- Groceries use USDA’s low-cost plan for a man and woman 19–50 and a 1-year-old, adjusted 5% for a three-person household. USDA has no plan for babies under 1, so formula and diapers are not included.
- Car costs are AAA’s 2026 national averages for one new vehicle driven 15,000 miles, minus depreciation and finance charges. Massachusetts insurance and excise rates may differ, and an older car would cost more to maintain.
- Phone and internet is MIT’s Bristol County estimate for two adults.
- Taxes are not included. The totals are compared with pre-tax income, so the real gap is larger.
