American Jobs Plan Fact Sheet: The Need for Action in Puerto Rico

by Joseph Robinette Biden

The Need for Action in Puerto Rico

For decades, infrastructure in Puerto Rico has suffered from a systemic lack of investment. The need for action is clear:

Puerto Rico’s infrastructure received a D− grade on its Infrastructure Report Card. The American Jobs Plan will make a historic investment in our nation’s infrastructure.

• Roads and Bridges: In Puerto Rico there are 282 bridges and over 1,492 miles of highway in poor condition. The American Jobs Plan will devote more than $600 billion to transform our nations' transportation infrastructure and make it more resilient, including $115 billion repairing roads and bridges.
• Public Transportation: Nearly 5% of trains and other transit vehicles in Puerto Rico are past useful life. The American Jobs Plan will modernize public transit with an $85 billion investment.
• Resilient Infrastructure: From 2010 to 2020, Puerto Rico has experienced several extreme weather events, costing Puerto Rico tens of billions of dollars in damages. The President is calling for $50 billion to improve the resiliency of our infrastructure and support communities’ recovery from disaster.
• Drinking Water: Over the next 20 years, Puerto Rico’s drinking water infrastructure will require $3.7 billion in additional funding. The American Jobs Plan includes a $111 billion investment to ensure clean, safe drinking water is a right in all communities.
• Housing: To help with the rent burden Puerto Ricans are facing, the President proposes investing over $200 billion to increase housing supply and address the affordable housing crisis.
• Broadband: Over 13% of Puerto Ricans live in areas where, by one definition, there is no broadband infrastructure that provides minimally acceptable speeds. And 68.8% of Puerto Ricans live in areas where there is only one such provider. Moreover, even where infrastructure is available, broadband may be too expensive to be within reach. Nearly 40% of Puerto Rico households do not have an internet subscription. The American Jobs Plan will invest $100 billion to bring universal, reliable, high-speed, and affordable coverage to every family in America.
• Caregiving: Across the country, hundreds of thousands of older adults and people with disabilities are in need of home and community-based services. The President's plan will invest $400 billion to help more people access care and improve the quality of caregiving jobs.
• Child Care: In Puerto Rico, there is an enormous gap in what schools need to do maintenance and make improvements and far too many residents live in a childcare desert. The American Jobs Plan will modernize our nation’s schools and early learning facilities and build new ones in neighborhoods across Puerto Rico and the country.
• Manufacturing: The American Jobs Plan will invest $300 billion to retool and revitalize American manufacturers, including providing incentives for manufacturers to invest in innovative energy projects in coal communities.
• Home Energy: In Puerto Rico, an average low-income family spends far too much of their income on home energy costs forcing tough choices between paying energy bills and buying food, medicine or other essentials. The American Jobs Plan will upgrade low-income homes to make them more energy efficient through a historic investment in the Weatherization Assistance Program, a new Clean Energy and Sustainability Accelerator to finance building improvements, and expanded tax credits to support home energy upgrades.
• Clean Energy Jobs: Puerto Rico has outsized potential for innovative energy technologies including carbon capture and sequestration and geothermal energy generation, that create good paying union jobs. The American Jobs Plan invests in building that industry through a reformed and expended Section 45Q tax credit and extending renewable energy tax credits.
• Veterans Health: Puerto Rico is home to over 79,000 veterans, 5.5% of who are women and 63.9% who are over the age of 65. The President is calling for $18 billion to improve the infrastructure of VA health care facilities to ensure the delivery of world-class, state of the art care to veterans enrolled in the VA health care system. This includes improvements to ensure appropriate care for women and older veterans.