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The Institute for Justice (IJ), in collaboration with the Institute for Economic Liberty (ILE), conducted a report on the licensing process for low-income occupations in Puerto Rico, finding that many have more requirements than in other U.S. jurisdictions.

The Institute for Justice recently released the report “License to Work: A National Study of Burdens from Occupational Licensing.” This edition provides an updated snapshot of licensing’s breadth and burdens for 102 lower-income occupations across all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and, in a first for this edition, Puerto Rico.

While cosmetologists require eight months of training to practice cosmetology, emergency medical technicians are only required to have three months.

A study by the Institute for Justice also revealed that the requirements in Puerto Rico are higher than in the United States for the same occupation.

The Institute for Justice recently released the report License to Work: A National Study of Burdens from Occupational Licensing. This edition provides an updated snapshot of licensing’s breadth and burdens for 102 lower-income occupations across all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and, in a first for this edition, Puerto Rico. It also presents an overview of major changes in licensing requirements for the 102 occupations have been tracked since the 2017 edition.

Puerto Rico is the least-free jurisdiction with 2.04; the least-free state’s score was more than twice as high. New York is once again the least-free state (4.25) for the eighth consecutive year, followed by California (4.59), Hawaii (4.65), Vermont (4.7), and Oregon (4.92). Scores are based on data from 2020, the latest year of available comparable data.

Florida is the most economically-free state and Puerto Rico, the least-free jurisdiction in the United States. The Fraser Institute, an independent non-partisan Canadian public policy research and educational organization, recently released the Economic Freedom of North America 2022 report, which measures the degree of economic freedom in various jurisdictions in Canada, the United States of America, and Mexico. This year, it included Puerto Rico for the first time.

Currently, Puerto Rico has about $60 billion in federal disaster recovery funds allocated for construction and energy projects, not counting additional funds that could be received from Hurricane Fiona. If PANS is implemented, many beneficiaries could take advantage of these job opportunities while contributing to the rebuilding of Puerto Rico.

The proposal to extend the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to Puerto Rico should be seen as an opportunity to improve the quality of life of thousands of families while their members are integrated, based on their abilities, into the labor force.

The Puerto Rico Institute for Economic Liberty (ILE, in Spanish) released a public policy report on the potential shift from the Nutritional Assistance Program (NAP) to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) that concluded that that nearly 250,000 people could be inserted into the island’s labor force and keep their benefits until they can overcome government dependency. It also emphasizes the agility with which SNAP would address Puerto Rico’s needs when faced with natural events such as Hurricane Fiona or another pandemic.