PR en Datos · Editorial · November 4, 2026

Puerto Rico: income & poverty

Puerto Rico’s 2020–2024 Puerto Rico Community Survey estimates place its median household income at $26,297 and its poverty rate at 40.5%. These are two different measures: one describes the middle household’s income; the other counts people whose family income falls below their applicable Census poverty threshold.

Municipios and counties, on the same scale

Five-year estimates · median household income in 2024 dollars and poverty rate

● PR municipios ● U.S. counties ◆ Puerto Rico ◆ U.S. / selected state

Hover or tap a dot, or Tab to the chart and use arrow keys to inspect values.

The interactive comparison brings those measures together. Each yellow dot represents a Puerto Rico municipio. Each blue dot represents a county or county equivalent in the selected state. Choose one state to compare its counties with all 78 municipios, or choose all U.S. counties for the national view. The red diamond marks Puerto Rico’s published estimate; the green diamond marks the selected state’s published estimate, or the United States in all-counties mode.

Read the pattern before the ranking

Moving right means a higher median household income. Moving up means a larger share of people below their applicable poverty threshold. Neither axis measures the experience of every household in an area. A county with a high median can still contain many residents facing hardship, and a municipio’s average circumstances can conceal substantial differences among communities.

State and territory benchmarks use published estimates. They are not averages of county or municipio medians. A large county and a small county each appear as one mark; the density of marks does not represent population.

What Census means by poverty

Census compares a family’s money income before taxes with a threshold that depends on its size and composition. If family income falls below that threshold, each family member is counted as in poverty. Noncash benefits are excluded. The thresholds change with inflation but do not vary with local living costs.

There is therefore no universal vertical poverty line on a chart of median household income. An illustrative family threshold can provide context, but it cannot classify whole counties or municipios as poor or nonpoor. The poverty rate already applies the appropriate thresholds to people’s family circumstances.

Watch change without losing the definitions

The time control must compare the same ACS/PRCS estimate product across releases. Five-year estimates describe five-year collection periods; adjacent releases overlap and must not be presented as independent annual observations. Income comparisons also require a common dollar basis. Geography changes and unavailable estimates must remain visible rather than becoming zeroes or invented trajectories.

A comparison, not a cost-of-living adjustment

Income expressed in a common year’s dollars accounts for inflation over time. It does not account for differences in housing, transportation or other costs between places. These charts describe a relationship between area-level measures, not evidence that one measure causes the other or that small differences are statistically meaningful.

Sources