Quality Of Life In Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico is an island located in the Atlantic Ocean, off of the East Coast of the Dominican Republic. The island of Puerto Rico is appealing, but being and island makes it more prone to natural disasters such as Hurricanes. Last September, two massive hurricanes, Maria and Irma hit Puerto Rico, significantly damaging the island. The economy was already deficient, but to make matters worse, repairs from the hurricanes cost tens of billions of dollars, substantially decrypting the economy even though the country had already been in about 90 billion dollars in debt. Despite Puerto Rico being a beautiful place to live and the United States Government is beneficial to them, the quality of life is unacceptable because of the depreciating economy.
The wealth in Puerto Rico has continued to decrease since 2005 causing many citizens to emmigrant to the United States mainland, exemplifying that their own citizens do not believe that the quality of life is suitable live in. Even though the unemployment rate is only at 15.4 percent, the average wage is about 8 dollars per hour, which is about three times less than The United States’ average wage. Because the people aren’t getting paid enough, they aren’t able to live adequate lives. Eight dollars an hour wage is not a proper living wage, so the people have trouble feeding their families, buying necessities such as clothing and pay for a proper shelter. If people cannot afford basic living necessities, such as food, water, clothes and a shelter, their quality of life is
Since the average wage is nearly rock-bottom, forty-five percent of the Puerto Rican population is below the poverty level, which is more than double the poverty rate in Mississippi, United States’ territory with the most poverty other than Puerto Rico. Merriam Webster’s Dictionary defines poverty as “the state of one who lacks a usual or socially acceptable amount of money or material possessions” which about half of the Puerto Rican population has to suffer with on a daily basis. Unarguably, the quality of life in Puerto Rico is dreadful, especially because of the lack of money the people posses, causing them to be not only at poverty level but below poverty level. Puerto Rico’s unemployment rate is also extremely high at twelve percent, which is about 4 times the United States’ unemployment rate. This negatively affects the economy because the fewer amount of people who work, the less money flowing, so the economy is lower. The unemployment rate affects the poor quality of life in Puerto Rico because when people do not have jobs, they are unable to afford the necessities to live. The unemployment rate used to be lower in