The economic crisis (characterized as Puerto Rico’s “Great Depression” and “La Crisis Boricua”) plaguing the island predates Hurricane Maria. Three shuttered in Loiza alone. It's unemployment rate in August was 10.1%, more than double the … On September 20, 2017, the island of Puerto Rico underwent its worst hurricane ever, named Maria.Be i ng a category four hurricane with winds over 155 mph (250 km/h) (by the time it made landfall on Puerto Rico), the outcome of its crossing was chaotic, deadly and disastrous to the island, resulting in a death toll of over 4600 people, and over $90 billion in damage. Ricardo Rosselló announced the numbers in a press conference in San Juan on Friday, according to local newspaper. That is also when the government says it expects Puerto Rico’s economy to stabilize. While most say their financial situation is about the same as before Maria hit, a large majority of residents said they are worried that they won’t have enough income to meet their needs in the future, including about half who say they are “very worried.”. Hurricane Maria explains much of the decline over the last year. The bakeries depend on coffee workers. “My role changed completely, from a psychologist to a handywoman, from having a PhD to doing construction work,” Candelas Tamayo said. Three years after Hurricane Maria, thousands of Puerto Rico’s residents are still recovering from the storm, even as the peak of the 2020 hurricane season begins. Residents of Puerto Rico who became unemployed as a result of Hurricanes Irma or Maria and who have left the Commonwealth for New York State can file UI and DUA claims by calling toll-free 888-209-8124 between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, or may file online at https://www.labor.ny.gov any day of the week. But many of those jobs are short term, related to the infusion of federal aid, and will not help build a sustainable economy. The official death count is 64. Many fled Puerto Rico or could no longer afford therapy. The Hill 1625 K Street, NW Suite 900 Washington DC 20006 | 202-628-8500 tel | 202-628-8503 fax. But now the town’s economy is at a standstill. It took more than 200 days to restore power to all Puerto Rico residents. Everything in Loiza feels quieter and emptier since Maria, residents said. Standing in an overgrown field with a Stetson atop his head, the 71-year-old looked down at the emptiness that was 15,000 seedlings, planted two years ago for his specialty coffee brand, Café de Puta Madre. The territory's number of active laborers was the highest since February 2013, with just over a million Puerto Ricans employed. Those communities were in the storm’s path of destruction and solicited the greatest amount of help from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, according to the University of Puerto Rico’s Census Information Center. Although power has been restored and access to clean water has greatly improved, Puerto Ricans are still recovering from the destruction and trauma of the hurricane. And the decline in unemployment could be fueled in part by a worrying phenomenon: the migration of hundreds of thousands of working adults to the mainland United States. At the peak of the hurricane … Candelas Tamayo’s father died from liver cancer days after the hurricane’s passage, when access to oncologists and radiation treatment was virtually nonexistent. If we fall, everything here falls.”. But there remains a constellation of needy municipalities across the Puerto Rican archipelago where jobs were already scarce and business has been sluggish for years. Three months without power forced Candelas Tamayo to close her practice, and once she reopened, her patients had disappeared. But it was damaged and never reopened. The Santanas, who live on the property, have been doing construction and landscaping to make up the loss. "Puerto Rico is in economic recovery and the instruments of investment and exports, and the instruments to facilitate work, are functioning," said Rosselló. According to the Post-Kaiser poll, 51 percent of Puerto Ricans are worried they won’t be able to find or keep a good job. In the decade preceding Maria, Puerto Rico suffered from major financial decline and crippling debt from poor fiscal management. The gas stations depend on coffee workers. With an official unemployment rate of 10.8 percent, nearly 118,000 people are out of work—a number many are predicting will skyrocket as small businesses continue to shut down and ramifications of the recent tax bill take effect. ADJUNTAS, Puerto Rico — September is ordinarily the beginning of harvest in the cool, crisp mountains of central Puerto Rico. The contents of this site are ©2020 Capitol Hill Publishing Corp., a subsidiary of News Communications, Inc. Puerto Rico's monthly unemployment figure dropped in July to its lowest point in half a century, according to new government figures. The storm exposed the brutal and historic neglect of the island and its 3.5 million U.S. citizens. The high poverty level is affecting the quality of life during quarantine, as Puerto Rico has not rebuilt many homes following Hurricane Maria. In addition to the lives lost and the catastrophic damage, the storm significantly impacted Puerto Rico’s labor market. “If this inequality continues, the recovery will only exacerbate it.”. Puerto Rico's suicide rate soared 29 percent after Hurricane Maria following decades of steady decline. Puerto Rico announced 52 weeks of federally-funded Disaster Unemployment Assistance (DUA) for workers and self-employed individuals who lost their jobs due to Hurricanes Maria and Irma. A year later, the 52-year-old is still unemployed, and the barriers to reenter the workforce feel insurmountable. The San Juan metro area is an economic bubble where businesses are open, people are heading to work and school, and roads are clogged during rush hour. It changes the fabric of a community, residents say, forcing residents to look for work outside their towns and to drive farther for services, losing those gathering places where locals stop and chat about life over coffee or an ice-cold Medalla. Last week, the number of new claims for unemployment insurance in Puerto Rico was 1,469 -- slightly fewer than the number recorded the weeks before hurricanes Irma and Maria … Early in 2017, the territory filed for bankruptcy as its public debt reached $74 billion. The July labor participation rate was 41 percent, a 0.1 percent dip from June, but a 1.4 percent raise compared to July 2017. “People are disillusioned with everything,” said Maricruz Rivera Clemente, the director and founder of a nonprofit community organization in Loiza, a northern coastal town and heart of the island’s Afro-Caribbean heritage. Jobless After Hurricanes, 10,000+ Puerto Ricans Now Eligible for Unprecedented 52 Weeks of ‘Disaster Unemployment Assistance’ - National Employment Law Project. It will take another three to five years for Puerto Rico’s coffee plantations to rebound and their fragile seedlings to mature. Last year: 89,000 left, Pew reports. Meanwhile, her psychology practice was crashing. The island reached a record low of suicides in 2016, with 196 in the year. The unemployment rate and the migration rate in all occupations have continued to increase after Hurricane Maria. In September 2017, Hurricane Maria caused massive infrastructural damage to Puerto Rico, but its effect on mortality remains contentious. More than 4 in 10 Puerto Ricans suffered a job loss, reduced hours or lost wages from a business closure or missed days at work because of the hurricane and its aftermath, according to a new Washington Post-Kaiser Family Foundation poll. A year after Maria, Puerto Rico’s economy remains feeble Arthur Siemon walks though a field where he had planted 15,000 coffee seedlings before Hurricane Maria devastated the crop a … The ACLU and other organizations advocated for the U.N. to visit the island and submitted a letter urging them to do so back in early October. As a whole, the island’s agriculture industry has taken a $780 million hit from the storm, leading to closed businesses and lost jobs. Puerto Rico has struggled to provide effective and transparent governance for its residents. 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