Rhode Island is home to that great symbol of Gilded Age wealth — The Breakers, the famous residence of the Vanderbilts. Although Rhode Island, like its neighbor Connecticut, has experienced a decline in population and wealth in recent decades, it still retains areas of significant wealth.
Recently, we analyzed and identified the richest cities in New Hampshire, as well as Connecticut. For this article, we turn to Rhode Island. This study analyzed 36 cities in Rhode Island with complete data from the Census Bureau, in terms of their median household income, mean (average) household income, median home value, and median property taxes paid per year, to come up with a list of the 50 richest cities in the state.
Read on to find out what the richest city in Rhode Island is, plus the top 15 wealthiest cities in the state overall.
What Are the Richest Cities in Rhode Island?
In order to compile this list of the richest cities in Rhode Island, we sourced key financial data from the Census Bureau’s 2022 American Community Survey. Armed with these datasets, we constructed a four-factor scoring system to help identify the wealthiest cities in Rhode Island:
- Median household income
- Mean (average) household income
- Median home value
- Median property taxes paid
You should be aware of a few oddities that the Census Bureau does with its data. For certain factors, the Census numbers have upper limits, so there’s no exact value for certain factors. For example, for median household income, the Census Bureau has an upper limit of “$250,000+”. For median home value, the upper limit is “$2,000,000+”. For median property taxes paid, the upper limit is “$10,000+”. For these reasons, the mean household income (which is the same as average household income) dataset is crucial because the Census Bureau has exact figures for it. All four of these metrics were scored, added up, and then ranked by the cities’ combined scores.
Another aspect of the Census to point out, and is particularly relevant to Rhode Island, is the Census-designated place — CDP. The Census, more or less, treats CDPs as cities — their terminology is “place” — and so will this list of the richest cities in Rhode Island. But if you see cities on this list that you see as, say, neighborhoods, you’re not wrong; they just happen to be treated as cities by the Census Bureau.
You’ll find a table detailing the top 15 richest cities in Rhode Island and their respective dollar figures for each metric, below:
The No. 1 richest city in Rhode Island in this ranking is Watch Hill, a CDP within the town of Westerly. This is a small place, stuffed into the far southwestern corner of the state, next to the Connecticut border, and not far from Fishers Island, New York. Watch Hill has the top scores across the board: It has the highest median household income in Connecticut, at $133,542; meanwhile, its average household income is well over double the median, at $382,740.
The reported median home value in the Census is over $2 million. Connected to this, the median property taxes paid by household is in excess of $10,000 a year. While Retail Trade accounts for one-third of the workforce in Watch Hill, according to Data USA, the second largest industry is Finance & Insurance, which employs 29.7%, which makes sense for a high-income place. And in terms of occupations, Management Occupations account for 30.7% of the workforce.
The No. 2 richest city in Rhode Island is Quonochontaug. This is a village in Washington County, composed of three small beach communities, and lies within Charlestown. This place, like No. 1 Watch Hill, can be found in the southeast part of Rhode Island. According to Data USA, the employment breakdown fits a high-income city, with the main industries being Health Care & Social Assistance (38.5% of the workforce), Professional, Scientific, & Technical Services (18.2% of the workforce), and Finance & Insurance (14.6% of the workforce).
The median household income in Quonochontaug is $114,010, while its mean household income is a solid $80,000 more, at $195,239. The median home value is quite high as well, at $1.03 million. The median property taxes paid by each household is $6,860, which is high, but not nearly as much as what Watch Hill homeowners pay.
Misquamicutis a CDP located in Westerly, just like Watch Hill, and comes in as the No. 3 richest city in Rhode Island. In fact, Misquamicutis is Watch Hill’s neighbor to the east. Here, the median household income is just a few hundred dollars less than Quonochontaug’s: $133,438 versus $114,010. The average household income is over $70,000 more than the median, at $187,481. Homes are expensive, with the median home value being reported as $801,900. The property taxes paid there are higher than Quonochontaug, at $7,038 versus $6,860.
The Bottom Line on the Richest Cities in Rhode Island
Newport, the home of Lois Griffin’s parents, the Pewterschmidt, is still among the top 15 richest cities in Rhode Island, but not like it used to be. Newport is actually the largest city by population on this list of the wealthiest cities in Rhode Island. Newport East, with over 5,000 households, is the second biggest on our list. Geographically, the southeast of Rhode Island is host to a set of the wealthiest cities in the state. But so is Aquidneck Island, which is where the No. 4 richest city, Melville, is located, as well as Newport.