More Than One Third of All Puerto Ricans on Food Stamps, Official Says

Thirty-five percent of the population in Puerto Rico receives food stamps, an abnormally large proportion due in part to a 31 percent increase in the number of Puerto Ricans over 60 who qualify for benefits.

Seniors account for 264,000 of the 1.3 million people on the island receiving help under the Puerto Rican equivalent of the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

Together, people in the over-60 and under-18 age cohorts total more than half of the food stamp recipients in the U.S. commonwealth, the director of Puerto Rico’s Administration for the Socioeconomic Development of the Family, Marta Elsa Fernández, told Efe.

She pointed out that Puerto Rico “is a poor country” and that therefore it is understandable that 1.3 million of the island’s 3.7 million residents would qualify for help.

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The increase in unemployment–which already exceeds 15 percent–and especially the fact that seniors are losing other types of public aid is increasingly pushing people over 60 to request food stamps, which they then share among their other younger family members.

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Regarding the amount of the aid, she said that, on average, each of the recipients receives $112 per month, while for a family of four that amount rises to $400.

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