The number of people leaving Puerto Rico is on the order of 70,000 people per year – with about 50,000 a year coming to the U.S. mainland.
As Europeans work towards a resolution of the Greek debt crisis, another economic crisis in Puerto Rico is contributing to a huge out-migration of residents from the island.
The population decline has accelerated in recent years and now rivals the size of an earlier out-migration in the 1950s. That’s according to a new Pew Research Center analysis.
Mark Hugo Lopez is Pew’s director of Hispanic Research. He told WNPR that the number of people leaving Puerto Rico is on the order of 70,000 people per year – with about 50,000 a year coming to the U.S. mainland.
"We've also taken a look at the reasons why people are leaving the island, and the Census Bureau has asked, 'Why have you moved in the last year?' One of the big reasons given is to search for a job. The other is to be with family in the United States," Lopez said.
Lopez said several things have led to Puerto Rico’s current economic crisis, but one of the main factors has been the expiration of a number of tax breaks designed to encourage manufacturing on the island, particularly pharmaceutical manufacturing.
"As those tax breaks expired in 2006, that led to the flight of a number of jobs away from Puerto Rico, and led to a rise in unemployment," Lopez said.
Hartford is home to one of the largest Puerto Rican communities in the nation. The state of Connecticut has the 6th largest overall population of Puerto Ricans in the country, according to the 2010 U.S. Census.
Listen to a conversation with Mark Hugo Lopez on WNPR’s Where We Live.
