Stateside Puerto Ricans

• Nuyoricans
• 
  Marc Anthony
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  Jennifer Lopez
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  Melissa Mark-Viverito
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  Lin-Manuel Miranda
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  Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
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  Mj Rodriguez
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  Sonia Sotomayor
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  Neil deGrasse Tyson

Between the 1950s and the 1980s, large numbers of Puerto Ricans migrated to New York, especially to Brooklyn, The Bronx and the Spanish Harlem and Loisaida neighborhoods of Manhattan. Labor recruitment was the basis of this particular community. In 1960, the number of stateside Puerto Ricans living in New York City as a whole was 88%, with most (69%) living in East Harlem.[42] They helped others settle, find work, and build communities by relying on social networks containing friends and family.

For a long time, Spanish Harlem (East Harlem) and Loisaida (Lower East Side) were the two major Puerto Rican communities in the city, but during the 1960s and 1970s predominately Puerto Rican neighborhoods started to spring up in the Bronx because of its proximity to East Harlem and in Brooklyn because of its proximity via the Williamsburg Bridge to the Lower East Side. There are significant Puerto Rican communities in all five boroughs of New York City.

Philippe Bourgois, an anthropologist who has studied Puerto Ricans in the inner city, suggests that "the Puerto Rican community has fallen victim to poverty through social marginalization due to the transformation of New York into a global city."[43] The Puerto Rican population in East Harlem and New York City as a whole remains the poorest among all migrant groups in US cities. As of 1973, about "46.2% of the Puerto Rican migrants in East Harlem were living below the federal poverty line."[44] However, more affluent Puerto Rican American professionals have migrated to suburban neighborhoods on Long Island and in Westchester County, New Jersey and Connecticut.

New York City also became the mecca for freestyle music in the 1980s, of which Puerto Rican singer-songwriters represented an integral component.[45] Puerto Rican influence in popular music continues in the 21st century, encompassing major artists such as Jennifer Lopez.[46]

As of the 2010 U.S. Census, there was an estimate of 121,643 Puerto Rican Americans living in Philadelphia, up from 91,527 in 2000. Representing 8% of Philadelphia's total population and 75% of the city's Latino American population, as of 2010. Puerto Ricans are the largest Latino group in the city and that, outside Puerto Rico, Philadelphia now has the second largest Puerto Rican population, estimated at about 150,000.[47] Since 2010, Philadelphia replaced the city of Chicago as the city with the second-largest Puerto Rican population, Chicago's slightly shrunk and Philadelphia's continued to grow, more than ever before, not only having the second largest Puerto Rican population, but also one of the fastest-growing.[48] Most sources, including the most reliable, the United States Census Bureau, estimated that as of 2010, Puerto Ricans made up between 70–80 percent of Philadelphia's Latino population.[49][50] Other sources put the percentage Puerto Ricans make up of Philadelphia's Latino population, as high as 90% and others as low as 64%.[51][52][53][54]

Division Street (Paseo Boricua) in Chicago, facing east from Mozart Street, one-half block west of California Avenue.

Puerto Ricans first arrived in the early part of the 20th century from more affluent families to study at colleges or universities. In the 1930s there was an enclave around 35th and Michigan. In the 1950s two small barrios emerged known as la Clark and La Madison just North and West of Downtown, near hotel jobs and then where the factories once stood. These communities were displaced by the city as part of their slum clearance. In 1968, a community group, the Young Lords mounted protests and demonstrations and occupied several buildings of institutions demanding that they invest in low income housing.[55] Humboldt Park is home to the one of the largest Puerto Rican communities in Chicago and is known as "Little Puerto Rico" or Paseo Boricua.[56][57]

Orlando and the surrounding area has had a sizable Puerto Rican population since the 1980s, as Florida as a whole has always had a decent sized Puerto Rican population. A big contributing factor for the growth of the Puerto Rican community in Central Florida was Walt Disney World, who heavily recruited employees in Puerto Rico. Central Florida's Puerto Rican population began to skyrocket starting in the early 2000s and accelerating in the 2010s, with many New Yorkers of Puerto Rican ancestry (Nuyoricans) moving to Florida, joining the island-born Puerto Ricans.[58]

During this time, the 1990s and early 2000s, the overall migration patterns out from Puerto Rico to the US mainland began to switch and Orlando became the main destination from Puerto Rico by far, replacing New York City. Puerto Ricans are largely spread out in the Orlando area, but the heaviest concentration is in the southern portions, like Kissimmee, Poinciana and many other areas in Osceola County, where Puerto Ricans make up the majority of the population.[59][60]

The Puerto Rican population by state, showing the percentage of the state's population that identifies itself as Puerto Rican relative to the state/territory population as a whole is shown in the following table.

State/Territory	Stateside Puerto Ricans Population (2010 Census)[62][63]	Percentage (2010)[note 1]	Most recent estimate (2017)[64]	Percentage (2017)	US Census Estimate (2021)[65]	Percentage (2021)
Alabama	12,225	0.3	20,027	0.5	21,921	0.4%
Alaska	4,502	0.6	7,637	1.0	8,653	1.2%
Arizona	34,787	0.5	41,901	0.6	55,899	0.8%
Arkansas	4,789	0.2	6,088	0.2	9,416	0.3%
California	189,945	0.5	212,500	0.6	223,991	0.6%
Colorado	22,995	0.5	27,872	0.6	35,644	0.6%
Connecticut	252,972	7.1	298,603	8.2	302,027	8.5%
Delaware	22,533	2.5	31,514	3.2	29,914	3.0%
District of Columbia	3,129	0.5	6,320	0.9	8,558	1.2%
Florida	847,550	4.5	1,120,225	5.4	1,190,891	5.5%
Georgia	71,987	0.7	99,085	0.9	131,779	1.2%
Hawaii	44,116	3.2	45,995	3.2	51,633	3.6%
Idaho	2,910	0.2	3,445	0.2	5,873	0.3%
Illinois	182,989	1.4	202,046	1.6	206,062	1.6%
Indiana	30,304	0.5	45,746	0.7	53,576	0.8%
Iowa	4,885	0.2	7,545	0.2	8,136	0.3%
Kansas	9,247	0.3	11,734	0.4	19,621	0.7%
Kentucky	11,454	0.3	19,312	0.5	15,548	0.4%
Louisiana	11,603	0.3	17,109	0.3	14,822	0.3%
Maine	4,377	0.3	6,091	0.3	6,698	0.5%
Maryland	42,572	0.7	60,781	1.0	57,150	0.9%
Massachusetts	266,125	4.1	327,959	4.9	340,893	5.0%
Michigan	37,267	0.4	42,952	0.4	53,958	0.5%
Minnesota	10,807	0.2	14,344	0.3	14,298	0.3%
Mississippi	5,888	0.2	7,766	0.2	7,761	0.3%
Missouri	12,236	0.2	15,577	0.2	18,440	0.3%
Montana	1,491	0.2	2,136	0.2	2,241	0.2%
Nebraska	3,242	0.2	6,765	0.3	6,921	0.4%
Nevada	20,664	0.8	28,046	1.0	30,389	1.0%
New Hampshire	11,729	0.9	16,331	1.2	20,772	1.5%
New Jersey	434,092	4.9	470,640	5.3	484,727	5.2%
New Mexico	7,964	0.4	9,895	0.5	12,285	0.6%
New York	1,070,558	5.5	1,112,123	5.7	1,096,823	5.6%
North Carolina	71,800	0.8	101,921	1.0	122,272	1.2%
North Dakota	987	0.1	2,099	0.3	3,507	0.5%
Ohio	94,965	0.8	125,554	1.1	143,688	1.2%
Oklahoma	12,223	0.3	17,334	0.4	18,640	0.5%
Oregon	8,845	0.2	9,904	0.3	15,252	0.4%
Pennsylvania	366,082	2.9	472,442	3.7	493,255	3.9%
Rhode Island	34,979	3.3	40,065	3.9	51,904	4.9%
South Carolina	26,493	0.6	38,025	0.8	40,214	0.8%
South Dakota	1,483	0.2	2,514	0.3	2,797	0.3%
Tennessee	21,060	0.3	31,295	0.5	32,819	0.5%
Texas	130,576	0.5	189,643	0.7	253,800	0.9%
Utah	7,182	0.3	9,176	0.4	11,341	0.3%
Vermont	2,261	0.4	2,335	0.3	2,458	0.4%
Virginia	73,958	0.9	106,472	1.3	109,439	1.3%
Washington	25,566	0.3	28,346	0.4	41,412	0.5%
West Virginia	3,701	0.2	6,494	0.4	6,122	0.3%
Wisconsin	46,323	0.8	56,028	0.9	69,917	1.2%
Wyoming	1,026	0.2	1,002	0.2	1,302	0.2%
USA	4,623,716	1.5	5,588,664	1.7	5,828,706	1.8%

Out of all 50 states, the ones with the highest net inflow of Puerto Ricans moving there from the island of Puerto Rico between 2000 and 2010 included Florida, Pennsylvania, Texas, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Ohio, Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia and Maryland.[10] New York, which has joined this list since 2010, remains a major destination for Puerto Rican migrants, though only a third of recent Puerto Rican arrivals went to New York between 2000 and 2010.[66] There is also a notable number of stateside-born Puerto Ricans moving from the Northeastern states to South Atlantic States, especially to Florida, but to a lesser degree many are also going to Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia as well.[63] The Northeast Corridor remains a major destination for Puerto Ricans, however the population is also growing throughout the United States, particularly in the South.[23][67] From 2010–17, Florida's Puerto Rican population increased from 847,000 to 1.120 million, increasing by nearly 300,000, allowing Florida to replace New York as the state with the largest Puerto Rican population. Puerto Ricans have been heavily increasing in many other parts of the country too, such as Texas and Ohio.[68]

Sonia Sotomayor, born in the Bronx, Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court

Despite Puerto Rican populations in New York and New Jersey being relatively stagnant, other parts of the Northeast continue to see very strong growth, particularly Pennsylvania and Lower New England (Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island). Pennsylvania easily having the second largest numerical increase of Puerto Ricans for the past 10–15 years, showing an increase of over 110,000 from 2010 to 2017-second only to Florida. Connecticut having the highest percentage of Puerto Ricans in the United States, from 2010 to 2017 (Pre-Maria) the percentage went up about 1.1 percentage points which is a percentile increase more than any other state, and currently over 8 percent of the state is of Puerto Rican ancestry, sitting nearly three whole percentage points above the second highest percentage. Of smaller states with populations under 3 million, Rhode Island has the fastest growing number of Puerto Ricans.[69] New York is still a relatively popular destination for those migrating from Puerto Rico, though not as much as in the past, as said earlier Florida and other Northeast states are now receiving larger numerical growth. However, much of the stagnant population growth is due to an equal number of Puerto Ricans leaving New York as there is Puerto Ricans moving to New York, as many people of Puerto Rican ancestry now living in other states are originally from the New York City area.

Although Puerto Ricans constitute over 9 percent of the Latino population in the United States, there are some states where Puerto Ricans make up over half of the Latino population, including Connecticut, where 57 percent of the state's Latinos are of Puerto Rican descent and Pennsylvania, where Puerto Ricans make up 53 percent of the Latinos. Other states where Puerto Ricans make up a remarkably large portion of the Latino community include Massachusetts, where they make up 40 percent of all Latinos, Rhode Island at 39 percent, New York at 34 percent, New Jersey at 33 percent, Delaware at 33 percent, Ohio at 27 percent and Florida at 21 percent of all Latinos in each respective state.[62] The U.S. States where Puerto Ricans were the largest Latino group were New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Hawaii.[62] U.S. states with higher percentages of Puerto Ricans then the national average (1.5%) as of 2010, are Connecticut (7.1%), New York (5.5%), New Jersey (4.9%), Florida (4.5%), Massachusetts (4.1%), Rhode Island (3.3%), Hawaii (3.2%), Pennsylvania (2.9%) and Delaware (2.5%).[69]

Historically, Puerto Ricans were the largest Latino group in the New York metropolitan area, however the Puerto Rican population in the area began to decrease due to rising cost of living and in turn the overall Latino population began to diversify with increases in other Latino groups. During the same time, the Puerto Rican population has increased in many other areas throughout the country and in areas with large Latino communities, Puerto Ricans represent the majority of Latinos in the following; Central Florida around Orlando, but also some areas in the Tampa and Jacksonville areas, southwest New England especially around Hartford and Springfield, South Jersey and Eastern Pennsylvania including the Philadelphia area and various smaller metro areas like Allentown among others, and the stretch from Western New York to Northeast Ohio including the metropolitan areas of Rochester, Buffalo and Cleveland.[69] Latino populations in the Northeast Ohio and Western New York areas in particular, tend to be 80–90% Puerto Rican.[63] However, Central Florida and Southwestern New England, which is Connecticut and western Massachusetts, have the highest concentrations of Puerto Ricans by percentage of the total populations of these areas as a whole.[63]

The Puerto Rican population in the United States, 2000 (graphic by Angelo Falcón)

Puerto Rican population by state, showing the percentage of Puerto Rican residents in each state relative to the Puerto Rican population in the United States as a whole.

The Puerto Rican flag in East Harlem in New York City, outside of the Julia de Burgos Cultural Center, winter 2005

Even with such movement of Puerto Ricans from traditional to non-traditional states, the Northeast continues to dominate in both concentration and population.

The largest populations of Puerto Ricans are situated in the following metropolitan areas (Source: Census 2010):

• New York City: 723,621 Puerto Rican residents, as of 2010;[62] compared to 789,172 in 2000, decrease of 65,551; representing 8.9% of the city's total population and 32% of the city's Latino population, are the city's largest Latino group.
• Philadelphia: 121,643 Puerto Rican residents, as of 2010;[62] compared to 91,527 in 2000, increase of 30,116; representing 8.0% of the city's total population and 68% of the city's Latino population, are the city's largest Latino group.
• Chicago: 102,703 Puerto Rican residents, as of 2010;[62] compared to 113,055 in 2000, decrease of 10,352; representing 3.8% of the city's total population and 15% of the city's Latino population, are the city's second largest Latino group.

The top 25 US communities with the highest populations of Puerto Ricans (Source: Census 2010)

The top 25 US communities with the highest percentages of Puerto Ricans as a percent of total population (Source: Census 2010)

The 10 large cities (over 200,000 in population) with the highest percentages of Puerto Rican residents include (2010 Census):[62]

Like other groups, the theme of "dispersal" has had a long history with the stateside Puerto Rican community.[70] More recent demographic developments appear at first blush as if the stateside Puerto Rican population has been dispersing in greater numbers. Duany had described this process as a "reconfiguration" and termed it the "nationalizing" of this community throughout the United States.[71]

New York City was the center of the stateside Puerto Rican community for most of the 20th century. However, it is not clear whether these settlement changes can be characterized as simple population dispersal. Puerto Rican population settlements today are less concentrated than they were in places like New York City, Chicago and a number of cities in Massachusetts, Connecticut and New Jersey.

Antonia Novello – Surgeon General of the United States

Residential segregation is a phenomenon characterizing many stateside Puerto Rican population concentrations. While blacks are the most residentially segregated group in the United States, a 2002 study shows that stateside Puerto Ricans are the most segregated among US Latinos.[74]

Stateside Puerto Ricans are disproportionately clustered in what has been called the "Boston-New York-Philadelphia-Washington Corridor" and in Florida along the East Coast. The U.S. Northeast Corridor, coined a "megalopolis" by geographer Jean Gottman in 1956, is the largest and most affluent urban corridor in the world, being described as a "node of wealth ... [an] area where the pulse of the national economy beats loudest and the seats of power are well established."[75] With major world class universities clustered in Boston and stretching throughout this corridor, the economic and media power and international power politics in New York City and the seat of the federal government in Washington, DC, also a major global power center.

These shifts in the relative sizes of Latino populations have also changed the role of the stateside Puerto Rican community.[76] Thus, many long-established Puerto Rican institutions have had to revise their missions (and, in some cases, change their names) to provide services and advocacy on behalf of non-Puerto Rican Latinos.

The Puerto Rican variant of Spanish is mainly derived from the Spanish spoken in southern Spain and the Canary Islands. It also has noticeable influences from numerous languages, including Taíno and various West African languages. It is very similar to other Caribbean Spanish variants.

About 83% of Puerto Ricans living in the United States ages 5 and older speak English proficiently, of whom 53% are bilingual in Spanish and English, and another 30% speak only English fluently with little proficiency in Spanish. The other 17% speak only Spanish fluently and report speaking English "less than very well" with little proficiency in English, compared to 34% of Latinos overall who report doing so.[69][89] According to a 2014 poll, 20% of Puerto Ricans living in the mainland United States speak Spanish at home, and 78% chose to answer the poll in English instead of Spanish, significantly more than other Latino groups polled.[90]

Many first- and second- generation Puerto Ricans living in New York speak "Nuyorican English", a mix of local New York English with Puerto Rican Spanish influences, while many Puerto Ricans living in other US cities speak with a similar English accent. More Americanized Puerto Ricans speak the local English accent with little to no Spanish traces, sounding similar to other local groups including Black Americans or assimilated Italian Americans.

The vast majority of Puerto Ricans in the United States are adherents of Christianity. Though, Catholics are the largest in number, there are also significant numbers of followers of numerous Protestant denominations. Protestants make up a larger proportion of the Stateside Puerto Rican population then they do of the population of Puerto Rico. Some Puerto Rican Catholics also cohesively practice Santería, a Yoruba-Catholic syncretic mix. Smaller portions of the population are non-religious. A very small number of assimilated stateside Puerto Ricans practice other religions, particularly in the inner city neighborhoods of Philadelphia and New York.

The most popular sports among stateside Puerto Ricans are Baseball and Boxing, with sports like American football and Basketball also having a strong following. Roberto Clemente and Hector Camacho are some Puerto Rican sports legends. Some stateside Puerto Ricans who recently emerged as pro athletes include Carmelo Anthony and Victor Cruz.

Jennifer Lopez, one of the highest-grossing and most multi-faceted triple threat entertainers in global history, is a Nuyorican, born in the Bronx.

Salsa, Reggaeton, Bachata, Merengue, Latin Pop and Latin Trap are the most popular music genres amongst many Stateside Puerto Ricans. However much older Puerto Ricans who were raised on the stateside since childhood, instead of coming at a later age usually prefer Latin Freestyle and/or Hip-Hop, usually that of the 1980s and 1990s. Other musical genres such as Pop, Rock, Hip-Hop, R&B, Reggae, Dance, House, Techno, Bolero, Ballads, and Heavy Metal are popular within many Puerto Ricans who mainly use English as their first language. Bomba, Plena, and Jibaro also have a big music population and community amongst many Stateside Puerto Ricans and can mostly be played during celebrations, especially during Christmas. New York Puerto Ricans helped form many genres including Boogaloo and Salsa in the 1960s and 1970s and Hip Hop, Latin house and Latin Freestyle in the 1980s, usually with the help of other ethnic groups. Some stateside Puerto Ricans who emerged as popular musicians include Marc Anthony, Jennifer Lopez and Big Pun.

Puerto Ricans have a 38.5% intermarriage rate, the highest amongst Latino groups in the United States.[91] Puerto Rican intermarriage and procreation rates are highest with Dominican Americans, another Caribbean Latino group with very similar culture, high US population numbers, and that usually live in the same neighborhoods. There are also relatively high rates with other groups such as African Americans, Jewish Americans, Italian Americans, Mexican Americans, Cuban Americans, Trinidadian Americans, Haitian Americans and Jamaican Americans.[64]

Numerous Puerto Ricans born and raised in the United States made notable cultural contributions in government, military, television, music, sports, art, law enforcement, modeling, education, journalism, religion, science, among other areas. Conversely, cultural ties between New York and Puerto Rico are strong. In September 2017, following the immense destruction wrought upon Puerto Rico by Hurricane Maria, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo led an aid delegation to San Juan,[92] including engineers from the New York Power Authority to help restore Puerto Rico's electrical grid;[93] subsequently, on the one-year anniversary of the storm, in September 2018, Governor Cuomo announced plans for the official New York State memorial to honor the victims of Hurricane Maria, to be built in Battery Park City, Manhattan, citing the deep cultural connections shared between New Yorkers and Puerto Ricans.[94] The Hurricane Maria Memorial was unveiled on March 26, 2021 in lower Manhattan.[95]

Melanie Martinez in February 2014

The stateside Puerto Rican community has usually been characterized as being largely poor and part of the urban underclass in the United States. Studies and reports over the last fifty years or so have documented the high poverty status of this community.[96] However, the picture at the start of the 21st century also reveals significant socioeconomic progress and a community with a growing economic clout.[97] Middle-class neighborhoods predominately populated by Puerto Ricans are mostly found throughout Central Florida, including Orlando, Tampa and their suburbs.[98] Significant numbers of middle-class Puerto Ricans can also be found in the Philadelphia metropolitan area, in upper North Philadelphia, particularly around the Olney-Juniata-Lawncrest area and in Camden County, New Jersey outside the city of Camden, and in the New York City metropolitan area, particularly in the eastern portion of the Bronx and Westchester County, as well as many suburbs of Miami and Boston and throughout New Jersey and southern New England. Smaller, more scattered numbers of well-off Puerto Ricans can be seen throughout the United States, in both traditional Puerto Rican settlements in the Northeast and Midwest, and in progressive sunbelt cities of the South and West.[99]

The combined income for stateside Puerto Ricans is a significant share of the large and growing Latino market in the United States and has been attracting increased attention from the media and the corporate sector. In the last decade or so, major corporations have discovered the so-called "urban markets" of blacks and Latinos that had been neglected for so long. This has spawned a cottage industry of marketing firms, consultants and publications that specialize in the Latino market.

One important question this raises is the degree to which stateside Puerto Ricans contribute economically to Puerto Rico. The Puerto Rico Planning Board estimated that remittances totaled $66 million in 1963.[100]

The full extent of the stateside Puerto Rican community's contributions to the economy of Puerto Rico is not known, but it is clearly significant. The role of remittances and investments by Latino immigrants to their home countries has reached a level that it has received much attention in the last few years, as countries like Mexico develop strategies to better leverage these large sums of money from their diasporas in their economic development planning.[101]

The income disparity between the stateside community and those living on the island is not as great as those of other Latin-American countries, and the direct connection between second-generation Puerto Ricans and their relatives is not as conducive to direct monetary support. Many Puerto Ricans still living in Puerto Rico also remit to family members who are living stateside.

Lymari Nadal actress, film producer and scriptwriter.

The average income in 2002 of stateside Puerto Rican men was $36,572, while women earned an average $30,613, 83.7 percent that of the men. Compared to all Latino groups, whites, and Asians, stateside Puerto Rican women came closer to achieving parity in income to the men of their own racial-ethnic group. In addition, stateside Puerto Rican women had incomes that were 82.3 percent that of white women, while stateside Puerto Rican men had incomes that were only 64.0 percent that of white men.

Stateside Puerto Rican women were closer to income parity with white women than were women who were Dominicans (58.7 percent), Central and South Americans (68.4 percent), but they were below Cubans (86.2 percent), "other Latinos" (87.2 percent), blacks (83.7 percent) and Asians (107.7 percent).

Stateside Puerto Rican men were in a weaker position in comparison with men from other racial-ethnic groups. They were closer to income parity to white men than men who were Dominicans (62.3 percent) and Central and South Americans (58.3 percent). Although very close to income parity with blacks (65.5 percent), stateside Puerto Rican men fell below Mexicans (68.3 percent), Cubans (75.9 percent), other Latinos (75.1 percent) and Asians (100.7 percent).

Stateside Puerto Ricans, along with other US Latinos, have experienced the long-term problem of a high school dropout rate that has resulted in relatively low educational attainment.[15]

According to the Pew Hispanic Center, while in Puerto Rico more than 20% of Latinos have a bachelor's degree, only 16% of stateside Puerto Ricans did as of March 2012.[10]

According to U.S. Census figures, the Puerto Rican population has one of the highest poverty and incarceration rates among all ethnic groups in the United States.[102] The Puerto Rican community is also one of the most segregated ethnic groups in the country.[103][104][105][106] The stateside Puerto Rican community has partnered with the African American community, particularly in cities such as New York and Philadelphia to combat racism and disenfranchisement of the mid to late 20th century in their communities as a unified force.[107][108][109] Though often perceived as largely poor, there is evidence of growing economic clout, as stated earlier.[97][110]

Breakdown of Latinos by voting registration stage in 2000. C-VAP stands for Citizen Voting Age Population (Citizens 18 years of age and older)

When the relationship of various factors to the turnout rates of stateside Puerto Ricans in 2000 is examined, socioeconomic status emerges as a clear factor.[121] For example, according to the Census:

• Income: the turnout rate for those with incomes less than $10,000 was 37.7 percent, while for those earning $75,000 and above, it was 76.7 percent.
• Employment: 36.5 percent of the unemployed voted, versus 51.2 percent for the employed. The rate for those outside of the labor force was 50.6 percent, probably reflecting the disproportionate role of the elderly, who generally have higher turnout rates.
• Union membership: for union members it was 51.3 percent, while for nonunion members it was 42.6 percent.
• Housing: for homeowners it was 64.0 percent, while it was 41.8 percent for renters.

There were a number of other socio-demographic characteristics where turnout differences also existed, such as:

• Age: the average age of voters was 45.3 years, compared to 38.5 years for eligible nonvoters.
• Education: those without a high school diploma had a turnout rate of 42.5 percent, while for those with a graduate degree, it was 81.0 percent.
• Birthplace: for those born stateside it was 48.9 percent, compared to 52.0 percent for those born in Puerto Rico.
• Marriage status: for those who were married it was 62.0 percent, while those who were never married managed 33.0 percent.
• Military service: for those who ever served in the US military, the turnout rate was 72.1 percent, compared to 48.6 percent for those who never served.