Parade attendees wave Puerto Rican flags on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan during the annual Puerto Rico Day Parade.
Luiz C. Ribeiro | New York Daily News | Tribune News Service | Getty Images
Young adults in Puerto Rico are on shaky financial ground, a study finds.
About 47% of respondents in the U.S. territory are financially fragile, meaning they lack confidence in their ability to absorb a $2,000 economic shock, according to a September report from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority Investor Education Foundation.
“This is the first time a study of this nature has been done on Puerto Rico,” said report co-author Harold Toro. He is also the research director and chair in economic development research at the Center for a New Economy, an economy-focused think tank based on the island.
“It highlights things that people feel and experience, but that are hard to find numbers for,” Toro said.
More than half, or 59%, of adults ages 18 to 29 on the island are financially fragile, compared to 47% of those ages 30 to 54 and 41% of those age 55 or older, FINRA found. The organization in 2021 polled 1,001 adults who live in Puerto Rico.
“The financial fragility and capability more broadly in Puerto Rico … it’s pretty dire when we compare it to the mainland United States,” said report co-author Olivia Valdés, senior researcher at the FINRA Investor Education Foundation.
Financial fragility, particularly for young adults, is much higher in Puerto Rico than on the mainland U.S. More than half, or 59%, of 18 to 29-year-olds are financially struggling in Puerto Rico compared to 38% of the same age group in the U.S., according to FINRA data.
About 30% of U.S. residents overall were considered financially fragile in 2021, according to FINRA’s latest Financial Capability in the United States report, which polled 27,118 U.S. adults in 2021. The Puerto Rico survey was separate, but fielded at the same time.
The younger generation has experienced financial strain for over two decades.
Vicente Feliciano
founder and president of Advantage Business Consulting, a market analysis and business consulting firm in San Juan, Puerto Rico
Many young adults leave Puerto Rico to try and improve their financial situation, by seeking education or employment in the United States or in other countries. For the young adults who stay, the generation must contend with an economy under recovery, an electric grid hanging on by a thread and sky-high costs for basic needs like housing.
Understanding why young Puerto Ricans are financially fragile could help with efforts to retain younger residents and bring working professionals back to the island, experts say.
But “living in Puerto Rico can’t just be a matter of survival, it also has to be a place where you can thrive,” said Fernando Tormos Aponte, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Pittsburgh.
Young Puerto Ricans are ‘having a tougher time’
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