Puerto Rico’s Lament
Puerto Rico has had more than its share to lament during the last eight years of global economic turbulence: $70 billion in debt, a 15.4 percent unemployment rate, a soaring cost of living, pervasive crime, crumbling schools and a worrisome exodus of professionals and middle-class Puerto Ricans to places like Florida and Texas.
Puerto Rico, about 1,000 miles from Miami, has long been poor. On the island, 37 percent of all households receive food stamps. Its per capita income is around $15,200, half that of Mississippi, the poorest American main land state. The recession has hit the middle class hardest of all. Jobs are still scarce, pension benefits are shrinking, and budgets continue to tighten, forcing thousands to flee to the mainland for jobs. The prices of basic utilities like water and electricity have skyrocketed and became barely affordable for large parts of the population.
Joseph Rodríguez travelled the country and documented the problems the Puerto Ricans are facing, problems that were already huge before hurricane Maria devastated the island in 2017. The population has declined precipitously. Of the island’s 3.67 million people, only one million work in the formal economy. With only 41.3 percent of working age Puerto Ricans in jobs, the island has one of the lowest labour participation rates in the world. Coupled with a falling birth-rate and a rapidly aging population, it raises worries about how Puerto Rico will thrive.
