01 Jan 1998 Facts About Puerto Rico Statehood

Language

Fully 90% of Puerto Rico’s high school graduates do not speak English well.

As a state, Puerto Rico could make Spanish its only official language (as it did in 1990) and require the rest of the United States to adapt to them. That could cost $2-3 billion each year in language translation costs alone based on the costs Quebec imposes on Canada.

 

Income

Puerto Rico’s per capita income of $8,509 is less than one third of the US average, and about one half that of Mississippi, the poorest state.

The average monthly per capita income in Puerto Rico would be $709 per month.

Social Security Disability payments are at least $790 per month.

Rank of a state of Puerto Rico as a state among states based on population: 25th

Rank of Puerto Rico currently if included among states based on persons receiving disability income: 16th

In Puerto Rico, 50% of families have incomes of less than $10,000.

In the United States, 67% of families have incomes of $25,000 or more.

Earned Income Credit: maximum benefit of $3,556 applies to workers earning between $8,900 and $11,610.

Amount of expected income to the U.S. Treasury from individuals in Puerto Rico because of the Earned Income Credit: $0.

Percentage of Puerto Ricans on the island who receive food stamps in 1989: 43.5%

Amount of expected increase in welfare payments annually to Puerto Rico as a state: $3 billion.

 

Crime

United States Murder Rate (1996): 7.4 per 100,000

New York City Murder Rate (1996): 12.0 per 100,000

Puerto Rico Murder Rate (1996): 25.0 per 100,000.

Rank of Puerto Rico if included among states based on 1996 murder rates: 6th.

 

Employment Patterns in Puerto Rico

The government sector in Puerto Rico generates approximately 380,000 jobs, or 33% of total employment.

Percentage of the economy of Puerto Rico from manufacturing: 42%.

Percentage of the economy of Puerto Rico from tourism: About 6%.

Total employment in Puerto Rico provided by 936 corporations: 11%

Tax benefit a 936 corporation receives per employee per year: about $24,000.

Average employee salary in a 936 corporation per year: $22,000

A 1990 Congressional Budget Office study concluded that, under statehood, Puerto Rico would suffer a permanent decrease in GNP of ten to fifteen percent by the year 2000 accompanied by a direct loss of between 50,000 and 100,000 private sector jobs.

The 1990 CBO study estimated that statehood would cost the US government over $9 billion in additional federal spending during the first four years of statehood, much of it to compensate for the loss of jobs in the private sector.

Puerto Rico’s operating budget: $6 billion.

Puerto Rico’s national debt: $20 billion.

 

Pro-Independence Terrorism

• “In June [1998], a San Juan Star newspaper poll showed Puerto Ricans are deeply divided over the issue, with 40.9 percent favoring statehood, 40.2 percent commonwealth and 7.6 percent independence.”–Miami Herald, July 15, 1998
• In Canada, Quebec separatism arose over many years. In the case of Puerto Rico, a strong current of separatist sentiment exists before statehood has even been granted. Carlos M. Ayes, a professor at The Center for Advanced Study located in San Juan who was charged, but recently acquitted of taking part in a $7.1 million robbery of a Connecticut Wells Fargo Depot by Puerto Rican nationalists, reminded readers of the New York Times Magazine of February 18, 1990, that statehood will not necessarily put an end to the independence movement: “Statehood will mean war,” he warns. “Violence is hard to stomach, but George Washington killed thousands of British to gain recognition for 13 colonies that claimed the right to be independent. If the United States wants its very own Northern Ireland, let them continue this farce.”
• Four armed pro-independence Puerto Rican terrorists opened fire on the House of Representatives on March 1, 1954. Four years earlier, pro-independence terrorists attempted to kill President Truman at Blair House.
• Puerto Rico is currently the leading source of domestic terrorism in the United States. Just one group, the Fuerzas Armadas de Liberacion Nacional (FALN), has been responsible for more than 120 bombings in New York, Chicago, Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C., since the mid-1970’s. There are several other similar groups.
• Terrorist groups destroyed $50 million worth of National Guard aircraft, and conducted a rocket attack on FBI offices in San Juan.
• “The phone strike has been marred by scattered incidents of violence, and police arrested five people accused of planting homemade bombs Thursday at the headquarters of the Puerto Rico Telephone Co.”– Miami Herald, July 10, 1998.

 

Drugs

• “Colombia has displaced Southeast Asia as the top exporter of heroin to the United States, with Miami and Puerto Rico as its main points of entry, U.S. authorities told Congress on Wednesday” — Miami Herald, June 25, 1998
• “[U]p to 40 percent of illegal drugs smuggled from producers in Latin America to consumers in the United States come through Puerto Rico.” — Miami Herald, August 1, 1997
• “Violent drug gangs virtually control Puerto Rico’s prisons, deciding who gets everything from toothpaste to cocaine, according to a scathing federal report recommending a U.S. government takeover”– Miami Herald, August 30, 1997

 

Illegal Immigration/Smuggling

• “Most of the Cubans later try to join the huge flow of Dominicans smuggled by boat each year to Puerto Rico to the east. From San Juan, it’s a no-passport flight to Florida, New York or New Jersey.”– Miami Herald, March 28, 1998.