Truth in Accounting divides each city's unpaid bills by the number of people who live there. For New York City in fiscal year 2021, that math comes out to $56,900 a resident, the highest figure among the large U.S. cities the group tracks. It is also 11.2% lower than the same measure in 2017. Chicago ranks second at $41,900, and the gap between second and third place is wider than the entire spread across the bottom five cities on the list.
The 10 Cities Ranked by Debt per Resident
The figures below come from Truth in Accounting's review of city financial reports for the 2021 fiscal year, with the change measured against each city's 2017 figure.
| City | Debt per resident | Change since 2017 |
|---|---|---|
| New York City | $56,900 | Down 11.2% |
| Chicago | $41,900 | Up 16.4% |
| Honolulu | $26,100 | Up 13.5% |
| Portland | $23,400 | Up 15.3% |
| New Orleans | $22,700 | Up 32.7% |
| Philadelphia | $21,800 | Down 21.9% |
| St. Louis | $18,000 | Up 7.8% |
| Dallas | $14,700 | Down 31.9% |
| Pittsburgh | $14,600 | Down 18% |
| Miami | About $14,000 | Down 1.4% |
What the Debt-per-Resident Number Measures
Nobody is going to mail residents a bill for $56,900. The number is a calculation: a city's obligations divided by its population. It lets you compare one city's financial position with another's without getting lost in the raw totals, since a big city with a big budget naturally owes more in absolute dollars than a small one.
A large share of what pushes these figures up isn't bond debt at all. Cities also carry promises made to current and retired employees, meaning pensions and retiree health coverage. When the money set aside doesn't cover what's been promised, the shortfall lands in the same bucket. That's part of why the ranking doesn't line up neatly with which cities have been building the most.
Pensions Push Chicago's Share to $41,900
Chicago is the clearest case of retirement obligations driving the number. The pension funds covering city employees are still short of what they owe, and closing that gap weighs on Chicago residents more heavily than it does on residents of other cities. The city's per-resident figure of $41,900 was 16.4% higher than in 2017, so the burden grew while several other large cities on this list shrank theirs.
New Orleans Posted the Steepest Increase, at 32.7%
Five cities moved in the wrong direction between 2017 and 2021:
- New Orleans, $22,700 per resident, up 32.7%, the largest increase on the list
- Chicago, $41,900, up 16.4%
- Portland, $23,400, up 15.3%
- Honolulu, $26,100, up 13.5%
- St. Louis, $18,000, up 7.8%
St. Louis had the mildest increase of the group. New Orleans and Portland both landed in the low-$20,000s per resident, but they got there on very different trajectories.
Dallas Cut Its Per-Resident Debt by Nearly a Third
Movement in the other direction was just as sharp. Dallas recorded the biggest drop of any city here, a 31.9% decline that left it at $14,700 per resident, just $100 above Pittsburgh. Philadelphia had the second-largest cut, down 21.9% to $21,800. Pittsburgh trimmed 18%, landing at $14,600.
New York City belongs in this group too. Even at the top of the ranking, its 11.2% decline means the per-resident figure was smaller in 2021 than it had been four years earlier.
Miami's Figure Barely Budged in Four Years
Miami's roughly $14,000 per resident was 1.4% lower than in 2017, the smallest change of any city on the list in either direction. Steady isn't the same as low or high. It means Miami's position relative to its residents looked much the same at both measurement points while cities around it swung by 20% or 30%.
Honolulu Carries $26,100 per Resident in a High-Cost Metro
Honolulu's $26,100 is the third-highest figure here, and household budgets there face a second squeeze: living costs run 84% above the U.S. average, a level only Manhattan exceeds.
Cost of living shows up in the New York figures too. Manhattan's cost of living is 127.7% higher than the national average and Brooklyn's is 68.6% higher. The same dollar of city debt sits alongside very different living expenses depending on where you are.
Population Shifts Can Move the Number Without Any New Borrowing
Because the metric has a denominator, it responds to who lives in a city and not only to what the city owes. Picture two cities that owe exactly the same amount. One is gaining residents, the other is losing them. Four years later, the growing city's per-resident figure has fallen and the shrinking city's has risen, though neither took on a dollar of new obligations. Population trends between 2017 and 2021 varied a lot across large U.S. cities, so a change in one of these figures can reflect a shift in the tax base, a shift in obligations, or both at once.
Timing matters as well. These are 2021 fiscal year numbers, and fiscal years don't all end on the same date. Federal pandemic relief, market returns on pension assets, and one-time expenses can all land in one reporting year and not the next.
Size and Direction Tell Different Stories
New York City has the largest per-resident figure on this list and is also one of the five cities that reduced it. Chicago sits far below New York in dollar terms but moved upward. A single year's snapshot flattens that difference, which is why the change column deserves as much attention as the ranking.
Truth in Accounting revises these figures as cities file new financial reports, so any one ranking describes a single reporting year. Two cities can sit a few hundred dollars apart in the same column and be headed in opposite directions.
Truth in Accounting divides each city's unpaid bills by the number of people who live there. For New York City in fiscal year 2021, that math comes out to $56,900 a resident, the highest figure among the large U.S. cities the group tracks. It is also 11.2% lower than the same measure in 2017. Chicago ranks second at $41,900, and the gap between second and third place is wider than the entire spread across the bottom five cities on the list.
The 10 Cities Ranked by Debt per Resident
The figures below come from Truth in Accounting's review of city financial reports for the 2021 fiscal year, with the change measured against each city's 2017 figure.
| City | Debt per resident | Change since 2017 |
|---|---|---|
| New York City | $56,900 | Down 11.2% |
| Chicago | $41,900 | Up 16.4% |
| Honolulu | $26,100 | Up 13.5% |
| Portland | $23,400 | Up 15.3% |
| New Orleans | $22,700 | Up 32.7% |
| Philadelphia | $21,800 | Down 21.9% |
| St. Louis | $18,000 | Up 7.8% |
| Dallas | $14,700 | Down 31.9% |
| Pittsburgh | $14,600 | Down 18% |
| Miami | About $14,000 | Down 1.4% |
What the Debt-per-Resident Number Measures
Nobody is going to mail residents a bill for $56,900. The number is a calculation: a city's obligations divided by its population. It lets you compare one city's financial position with another's without getting lost in the raw totals, since a big city with a big budget naturally owes more in absolute dollars than a small one.
A large share of what pushes these figures up isn't bond debt at all. Cities also carry promises made to current and retired employees, meaning pensions and retiree health coverage. When the money set aside doesn't cover what's been promised, the shortfall lands in the same bucket. That's part of why the ranking doesn't line up neatly with which cities have been building the most.
Pensions Push Chicago's Share to $41,900
Chicago is the clearest case of retirement obligations driving the number. The pension funds covering city employees are still short of what they owe, and closing that gap weighs on Chicago residents more heavily than it does on residents of other cities. The city's per-resident figure of $41,900 was 16.4% higher than in 2017, so the burden grew while several other large cities on this list shrank theirs.
New Orleans Posted the Steepest Increase, at 32.7%
Five cities moved in the wrong direction between 2017 and 2021:
- New Orleans, $22,700 per resident, up 32.7%, the largest increase on the list
- Chicago, $41,900, up 16.4%
- Portland, $23,400, up 15.3%
- Honolulu, $26,100, up 13.5%
- St. Louis, $18,000, up 7.8%
St. Louis had the mildest increase of the group. New Orleans and Portland both landed in the low-$20,000s per resident, but they got there on very different trajectories.
Dallas Cut Its Per-Resident Debt by Nearly a Third
Movement in the other direction was just as sharp. Dallas recorded the biggest drop of any city here, a 31.9% decline that left it at $14,700 per resident, just $100 above Pittsburgh. Philadelphia had the second-largest cut, down 21.9% to $21,800. Pittsburgh trimmed 18%, landing at $14,600.
New York City belongs in this group too. Even at the top of the ranking, its 11.2% decline means the per-resident figure was smaller in 2021 than it had been four years earlier.
Miami's Figure Barely Budged in Four Years
Miami's roughly $14,000 per resident was 1.4% lower than in 2017, the smallest change of any city on the list in either direction. Steady isn't the same as low or high. It means Miami's position relative to its residents looked much the same at both measurement points while cities around it swung by 20% or 30%.
Honolulu Carries $26,100 per Resident in a High-Cost Metro
Honolulu's $26,100 is the third-highest figure here, and household budgets there face a second squeeze: living costs run 84% above the U.S. average, a level only Manhattan exceeds.
Cost of living shows up in the New York figures too. Manhattan's cost of living is 127.7% higher than the national average and Brooklyn's is 68.6% higher. The same dollar of city debt sits alongside very different living expenses depending on where you are.
Population Shifts Can Move the Number Without Any New Borrowing
Because the metric has a denominator, it responds to who lives in a city and not only to what the city owes. Picture two cities that owe exactly the same amount. One is gaining residents, the other is losing them. Four years later, the growing city's per-resident figure has fallen and the shrinking city's has risen, though neither took on a dollar of new obligations. Population trends between 2017 and 2021 varied a lot across large U.S. cities, so a change in one of these figures can reflect a shift in the tax base, a shift in obligations, or both at once.
Timing matters as well. These are 2021 fiscal year numbers, and fiscal years don't all end on the same date. Federal pandemic relief, market returns on pension assets, and one-time expenses can all land in one reporting year and not the next.
Size and Direction Tell Different Stories
New York City has the largest per-resident figure on this list and is also one of the five cities that reduced it. Chicago sits far below New York in dollar terms but moved upward. A single year's snapshot flattens that difference, which is why the change column deserves as much attention as the ranking.
Truth in Accounting revises these figures as cities file new financial reports, so any one ranking describes a single reporting year. Two cities can sit a few hundred dollars apart in the same column and be headed in opposite directions.
