The Trump administration’s campaign to erase women, people of color and LGBTQI+ people from federal data and reporting has raised public awareness of how important inclusive data are. But as we fight to preserve crucial existing sources of data, it’s important to remember that the status quo before 2025 was never good enough. A particularly stark example of data inequity is Puerto Rico. Unfortunately, datasets that the National Partnership normally relies on to drill down below nationwide figures often leave out or don’t paint the full picture of the roughly 3.1 million U.S. citizens who live in Puerto Rico. For example, Puerto Rico is not part of the National Compensation Survey that we use to learn about access to paid family leave and paid sick days, and disaggregated data for Puerto Rico is not published for the Household Pulse Survey, which provided timely snapshots of health and economic security in the first years of the pandemic.
This exclusion, and limitations in available data in other sources discussed below, contributes to the erasure of Puerto Ricans on the island, and limits our ability to identify gaps and propose solutions. Policymakers won’t fix what we can’t measure.
Why Understanding Local Data Collection Matters
For decades now, researchers have noticed significant shortcomings in federal data on Puerto Rico. The 2016 Congressional Task Force on Economic Growth in Puerto Rico noted how this lack of data has proven troubling in implementing policies that promote economic growth. Federal data should be equally representative of all Americans, including those in Puerto Rico. But when federal data is lacking, as was noted by the Task Force, we can turn to local data to responsibly fill this gap.
Due to a lack of investment, federal data on Puerto Rico often lack the granularity and contextual insight needed to capture how gender, occupation, and caregiving responsibilities intersect on the island, and does not always allow us to disaggregate data for intersectional identities. While this limitation exists in the states as well, its consequences may be even more pronounced in Puerto Rico due to the unique hardships caused by decades of economic recession and persistently high unemployment, as well as the relatively larger size of the informal economy, where many Puerto Rican women are employed. The informal economy represents more than 20 percent of Puerto Rico’s local economy; in comparison, the U.S.informal economy represents 7 percent of the national economy. Without accurate and inclusive data, policymakers risk overlooking the economic realities of a significant portion of Puerto Rico’s female workforce.
What Puerto Rico’s Own Data Reveals
Local data collection initiatives, such as those conducted by the Puerto Rico Department of Labor and Human Resources and community-based organizations, have their own limitations, but can provide a more grounded and nuanced snapshot of dynamics contributing to the wage gap in Puerto Rico. An analysis of administrative data from businesses in Puerto Rico found that women were typically paid just 82 cents for every dollar paid to men in 2023. (Because this analysis was based on Quarterly Unemployment Filings with the Department of Labor and Human Resources, it would not reflect any wages earned in the informal economy.) Unfortunately, this source of data is not publicly accessible like the American Community Survey, meaning advocates can’t use it to track annual wages gaps the way we do for the states.
Between 2022 and 2023, Women Who Lead conducted a series of three surveys for the Puerto Rico Department of Labor and Human Resources. The first surveyed 190 businesses about their pay equity policies. The second gathered responses from over 3,500 female employees from those same 190 businesses. The third focused on male executives from 10 organizations. Though these survey samples are not representative of Puerto Rico as a whole, the results point to pay inequities and inadequate employer policies. While 73 percent of companies in the business survey reported having equal pay policies, only 39 percent of female employees in the employee survey were aware of such policies in their workplaces, and just 42 percent believed their organization ensured equal pay for equal work. While the survey data comes with caveats that may place limits on generalizability beyond the surveyed organizations, it remains a critical tool in understanding local pay equity dynamics, especially in the absence of comprehensive and comparable federal data on Puerto Rico.
These findings highlight a broader disconnect between policy and practice, as well as the importance of not only having pay equity frameworks but ensuring they are communicated, enforced and trusted by those they are meant to protect. Ultimately, getting the full story of all gender wage gaps, including Puerto Rico, requires intentional, locally grounded research that centers the lived experiences of working women.
Post-Maria Recovery: A Gendered Labor Shift
This need for localized, gender-sensitive analysis is even more apparent when examining the island’s recovery from Hurricane Maria and the COVID-19 pandemic. The post-disaster period saw a notable increase in women’s formal labor force participation, rising from approximately 33 percent in 2017 to 38 percent in 2023. Men’s labor force participation – higher than women’s at baseline – also grew, albeit more slowly, from 48 percent to 51 percent. This shift reflects women’s critical role in economic resilience.
However, the disaster-relief-driven economic recovery post-COVID-19 has not benefited men and women equally. While women entered the workforce at higher rates, wage gains were heavily skewed toward men. Between 2019 and 2023, median wages for women rose only 2 percent, while men’s median wages rose by 15 percent. As a result, the gender pay gap widened, with women paid just 82 cents for every dollar paid to men in 2023, down from 92 cents in 2019.
In the aftermath of Hurricane María, federal recovery efforts in Puerto Rico understandably prioritized rebuilding critical infrastructure and housing, sectors traditionally targeted by programs under the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). However, construction jobs are overwhelmingly held by men in Puerto Rico as in the mainland U.S., meaning that the “shovel ready” jobs in reconstruction projects are predominantly held by men, while sectors with high female employment, such as education, healthcare, and retail, have seen slower job recovery and wage growth. Rather than a misallocation, this reflects a broader pattern in post-disaster recovery that overlooks gendered labor dynamics. Future recovery efforts could harness existing recovery programs like those under FEMA not just to rebuild but also to create inclusive workforce opportunities, such as incentivizing women’s participation in reconstruction work or allocating complementary support for female-dominated industries critical to long-term recovery. Long-term investments into expanding this workforce include utilizing the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) to expand access to good-paying infrastructure jobs for women, especially women of color, who remain underrepresented in these fields. Expanding access to training, fair hiring practices and wraparound supports, such as child care, would not only help close gender gaps in employment and wages, but also ensure a more equitable and resilient economic recovery.
Additionally, the caregiving burden on women increased dramatically when the hurricane struck. School closures, inadequate child care infrastructure and disrupted elder care services forced many women to leave jobs or reduce their hours. These pressures were especially significant in Puerto Rico, where women were then and still are more likely to work in the informal economy – an area often overlooked by U.S. Census data, which tends to underreport informal labor and unpaid caregiving responsibilities. Caregiving labor is not only essential to families and communities, it is also systematically undervalued in economic policy and planning. The lack of adequate child care, flexible work options and paid family leave meant that many women had to sacrifice income and career stability, compounding the economic fallout of the disasters.
Why Better Data Is Key to Gender Equity
People don’t count in key policy conversations if they aren’t counted to begin with. Due to the federal government’s lack of investment and engagement with local communities’ input, federal data about Puerto Rico can be incomplete or misaligned with local realities, resulting in inaction or ineffective intervention. This is why Puerto Rico’s own initiatives to collect gender-disaggregated wage data are so important. They not only supplement federal data that might otherwise fuel misconceptions about the island, but also create a foundation for tailored policy solutions. However, while local data will always play an essential role in building economic equity, it can’t fill in gaps that inadequate federal data leave behind.
At the National Partnership for Women & Families, we believe that closing the gender wage gap requires more than commitment, it requires evidence. That’s why we’ve consistently called for stronger, more transparent data collection systems that indicate where, why and how disparities persist. Without this kind of clarity, gender inequities remain hidden or poorly understood, and too easy to ignore. In Puerto Rico, the need for better data is urgent. Local research initiatives and employer-level surveys help fill in the gaps, but they are not a substitute for systematic, accessible labor data that is disaggregated by gender, race, ethnicity and occupation. The gender wage gap is real in Puerto Rico. It’s time the data reflected that.
Thanks to Katherine Gallagher Robbins, Sharita Gruberg, Sinsi Hernández-Cancio, Mettabel Law, Anwesha Majumder, Jessica Mason, Udochi Onwubiko and Gail Zuagar for their contributions.
