Opinion
Economic anxiety from New York to Puerto Rico, with Tom DiNapoli
New York and Puerto Rico are inextricably linked in many ways but none moreso than a shared sense of economic insecurity, albeit with drastically different root causes.
Puerto Rico is on the road to a long, difficult recovery from the damage inflicted by Hurricane Maria. Mass power outages continue to plague the island, and billions of dollars in federal aid will be needed to rebuild the island's critical infrastructure.
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And while New York is not dealing with a natural disaster of any kind, the state has shown significant warning signs that its post-recession economic boom might be slowing down. State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli warned in October that tax collections are nearly $387 million below the latest projections. The combination of diminished tax receipts and a potentially punitive federal budget proposal making its way through Congress could spell trouble for the Empire State.
DiNapoli was among the cohort of New York lawmakers that met for a modified version of the 2017 Somos conference, which was held in Queens this year instead of San Juan because of damage from the hurricane. As part of our coverage of Somos, we sat down with DiNapoli to discuss just how difficult a recovery process this will be economically for Puerto Rico, and whether New Yorkers should be worried about these economic warning signs.