Seven weeks after Hurricane María devastated Puerto Rico, most of its 3.4 million inhabitants still don’t have electricity. And the island’s deeply indebted economy — already in crisis before the storm — is in worse shape than ever, warned a panel of economists meeting Tuesday afternoon in Washington.
Puerto Rico’s population will dip under 3 million within a year — for the first time since the mid-1970s — if current rates of emigration continue, warns Jenniffer González-Colón, the island’s resident commissioner in Washington.
Ukraine, 66 times the land area of Puerto Rico, is the largest country wholly within Europe. The Texas-size former Soviet republic has precious little in common with the tiny U.S. commonwealth except that both are rapidly losing population — and both face huge fiscal challenges ahead.
A Dow Jones/Factiva content provider since 2014
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