Massachusetts District 4

Massachusetts' Fourth Congressional District is one of the most economically and geographically diverse districts in the Commonwealth, spanning 35 municipalities with approximately 750,000 residents across five counties. The district stretches from the wealthy suburbs of Newton, Brookline, and Wellesley — where median home prices exceed one million dollars — to the working-class cities of Fall River, Taunton, and Milford, where families struggle with stagnant wages, rising costs, and the legacy of deindustrialization. This diversity means that any representative must understand both the challenges facing professional workers in the knowledge economy and the urgent needs of working-class communities that have been left behind by decades of trade policy and capital flight.

Fall River and Taunton were once thriving mill cities, centers of textile and manufacturing that provided good union jobs for generations of immigrant families. Today, these communities face some of the highest poverty rates in Massachusetts. Residents in these cities confront crumbling infrastructure, inadequate public transportation, and healthcare systems that extract profit rather than provide care. Meanwhile, even in the wealthier suburbs, families face the highest health insurance premiums in the nation — $3,600 above the national average — and young people cannot afford to buy homes in the communities where they grew up because private equity firms and hedge funds have turned housing into a speculative asset class.

The residents of the Fourth District need Medicare-for-All to guarantee healthcare as a right rather than a privilege tied to employment. They need Universal Basic Income to provide economic security as automation and artificial intelligence displace workers across every sector of the economy. They need aggressive action to lower prescription drug prices, which requires allowing Medicare to negotiate prices for all medications rather than the handful currently permitted. They need affordable housing, which means banning hedge funds from purchasing single-family homes and investing in public housing. They need the PRO Act to restore collective bargaining rights so workers can negotiate fair wages and working conditions. They need representatives who refuse corporate PAC money and will fight for working people rather than the wealthy donors who have captured our political system. The Fourth District deserves a representative who understands that the struggles of Fall River and the struggles of Brookline are connected — that an economy rigged for the wealthy harms everyone except those at the very top.