In my opinion, their greatest achievement has been in its educational system. Despite its huge list of problems, UPR enables people of any background to receive an affordable high quality college education. In the US, you're basically forced to take out huge loans that might take decades to pay off. This should mean you'll get access to lots of highly educated individuals, although I don't know if that's the case in practice.
One of my biggest complaints is its poor representation in the US government. If you're living in Puerto Rico you can't vote in any of the US's elections, even though the actions of the president and congress could potentially affect you. e.g. You could get drafted and sent off to war.
Puerto Rico has its own constitution [0], which arguably grants stronger rights to its citizens than the US constitution. For example, wire-tapping is explicitly illegal. It also includes entries allowing employees to organize into associations and collectively negotiate with their employers, as well as go on strike.
An interesting point is that everyone is required to get a voter ID in order to participate in an election. This isn't seen as a problem, and getting one is incredibly easy. I found it incredibly surprising this wasn't the case in the US.
Food is amazing, but there's very little variety. Since there's so few people from different cultural backgrounds, you mostly get the same templates repeated everywhere. In the last decade it has been slowly improving. If you're a vegan or vegetarian, or if you require a gluten-free diet (i.e. coeliac disease), you'll have a hard time eating out.
Due to cabotage laws, you can't import directly to Puerto Rico. Everything has to go through a US port, which translates to increased costs.
Shipping stuff to Puerto Rico is usually more expensive than shipping stuff to the contiguous United States. I'd guess it's comparable to Hawaii.
Even though both English and Spanish are considered official languages, you'll have a very hard time living there if you don't know Spanish.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_Puerto_Rico
Using statistics from 2014 (because that's when I last did the research) San Juan's murder rate was lower than the murder rate of Detroit, New Orleans, St. Louis, Baltimore, Newark, and Oakland. It was a tad worse than Chicago. It's also important to keep in mind that most murders in Puerto Rico are the result of gang on gang warfare and just like everywhere else there are some good neighborhoods and some bad neighborhoods. Compared to Mexico San Juan's murder rate is a fraction of the murder rate of cities like Acapulco and lower than infamous border cities like Tijuana.
Puerto Rico as a whole has a higher murder rate than the USA and Mexico because of its ridiculously high population density. It's a small island (roughly the size of Connecticut) but it has one of the highest population densities in the states. Even in rural areas you're only a stone's throws away from your neighbor. In the USA and Mexico, however, you average the murder rate of thousands of safe and quiet towns with the murder rate of a few bad cities so you end up with relatively good numbers.
To give you some perspective, if you were to choose between Mexico and Puerto Rico without intimate knowledge of the two places you would probably choose Mexico because it has a lower murder rate than Puerto Rico. But if you were to choose between Acapulco and San Juan you would definitely choose San Juan because its murder rate is less than a third than the murder rate of Acapulco even though San Juan is Puerto Rico's deadliest city.
When I was living there, I generally didn't feel unsafe. As long as you avoid dangerous areas, I think the likelihood of something happening to you is fairly low. Although I'll admit I feel safer in Santa Clara. Certain parts of San Francisco feel pretty unsafe to me. I'd avoid walking around Tenderloin at night just as much as La Perla.
I've been told that even though the murder rate is high, it's mostly due to gang and drug related violence.
One of my friends that lives in the metropolitan area told me that in recent years she has felt less safe than before. She claims that she has perceived an increase in brutality, and that criminals no longer give a fuck. This is a rough paraphrased translation.
That's a sailor's perspective on PR healthcare. Since I'm not part of their health care system I looked at it as is it worth it here or do I sail 6 hours to DR. Antibiotics there are 50cents.
According to the article, finding specialists in certain medical fields is apparently beginning to become a problem.
Puerto Rico is part of the United States.
Is it the language -- a Spanish-majority state would not get the approval from other states to join the union? Or something less obvious?
There have been similar concerns going back to the 1800s as well with the United States' western expansion and creation of new western states.
https://rightedition.com/2016/03/11/puerto-rico-rejects-gay-...
They're probably more motivated by the complete lack of federal income tax[0]. Funny that this wasn't mentioned once in the entire article.
0. https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2014/07/04/hate-taxe...
The narrative that the article paints about this cohort moving to Puerto Rico just out of pure love of the island sounds starry-eyed and naive. Businesses make business decisions, and incredible tax breaks need to be factored into that rational.
At the very least, the article could have examined this point and dismissed it if it's mostly untrue. But tax incentives (not including the one I mentioned) were barely discussed.
It seems that "returners" don't qualify for that. Maybe it's just the amazing Puerto Rican food (I'd eat every meal at La Casita Blanca if I could).
The article is in reference to (but doesn't mention) the "Individual Investors Act (Act 22)"[1], which exempts you from Puerto Rico's own income tax, and limits your IRS liabilities for capital gains tax on long term investments sold within the first ten years of your residency.
Regardless of if you take advantage of the above, you are exempt from Federal taxes.
This is just an incentive atop it.
[1] http://businessinpuertorico.com/en/profit/individual-investo...
It's pretty interesting to see how this works out within the U.S. when it comes to personal income tax[0]
We have a incubator called parallel18, and a couple of working spaces. It's not a super huge tech scene but the people are awesome.
For consumers, there's gigabit internet (both upload and download) without any data caps for $70/mo [0] in part of the metropolitan area. They appears to have commercial offerings [1], but no pricing info is available.
I found this blog post [2] from 2015 claiming that getting internet speeds adequate for streaming a large event can range between $1500 and $3000.
[0] http://optico.criticalhub.com/plans
[1] http://www.criticalhub.com
[2] https://medium.com/@lherrero/como-el-oligopolio-del-internet...
It's an awesome spot for working remotely if you're into the water.
Definitely real challenges though... these places are poor tropical backwaters. It's a shame as it's beautiful and full of potential.
The incentives of the USVI EDC Program* are quite significant. It's one of the only legal loopholes for US citizens to avoid most income taxes. The main catch is, you have to hire 10 people, including 8 locals (this can include yourself):
- 90% reduction in corporate income tax
- 90% reduction in personal income tax
- 100% exemption on gross receipt tax
- 100% exemption on business property tax
- 100% exemption on excise tax payments
- Reduction in the customs duty from the standard 6% to 1%
- Tax reduction on royalty income from software developed in the USVI and sold to non-US customers
- Availability of rental space at below market rates in the St. Croix and St. Thomas Industrial Parks
There's also a huge mountainous interior that's a world away from the tropical beaches and Spanish colonial towns. Mostly that's the source of the absolutely incredible coffee that comes from the Island.
Why it isn't more like Hawaii isn't entirely clear, but I suspect not being fully integrated into the U.S. Federal system is part of it. The local governance of the Island hasn't been fantastic and most of the Puerto Ricans I know who lived there have long ago since moved to the mainland U.S. to find a better life (many of them also then turn around and buy investment vacation property back on the Island they spend time in every summer).
Still, if you know where to go, and where not to go, and learn some of the local ways of doing things, it can be a very lovely place, great history, good food, right in the Caribbean so other islands are close by...
https://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/2172167...
And someone asked why it is not a state yet:
https://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21723149-more-6...
And an year-old article about the troubles facing PR:
https://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2016/05/e...