Company: OIA
Filing Date: 2025-02-07
Form Type: N-2/A
Source: 0001104659-25-010545
Chunk: 173

Company: Invesco Municipal Income Opportunities Trust
Filing Date: 2025-02-07
Form: N-2/A
Chunk 173
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 to more than 640,000 taxpayers with approximately $1.3 billion estimated for FY2023 alone. While not solely attributable to the EITC, given other concurring federal stimulus funding, since the adoption of the expanded credit, Puerto Rico’s non-farm employment level increased by over 106,000 from about 851,100 in January 2021 to 957,600 in February 2023. Puerto Rico’s labor force also increased by about 89,000 over this same period, and as of December 2023, the labor participation rate (the size of the labor force relative to the size of the working age population) increased from around 40.6% in 2020 (1.1 million workers) to 43.6% in 2023 (1.2 million workers). Fiscal Plan and Budget.The Commonwealth has faced a number of significant fiscal challenges, including a structural imbalance between its General Fund revenues and expenditures. Such challenges contributed to the passage of PROMESA, which established the Oversight Board and empowered it to approve Puerto Rico’s fiscal plans and budgets. The Oversight Board is comprised of seven members appointed by the President who are nominated by a bipartisan selection process. The budget process requires the Oversight Board, the Governor, and the Commonwealth’s Legislative Assembly to develop a budget that complies with the fiscal plan developed by the Oversight Board and the Governor. Most of Puerto Rico’s unaffordable debt has been dramatically reduced. The restructuring of the central government debt saved Puerto Rico more than $50 billion in debt payments to creditors. The restructurings of COFINA saved about $17.5 billion, the Highways and Transportation Authority (HTA) about $3 billion, and the Puerto Rico Aqueducts and Sewers Authority (PRASA) about $400 million. The savings of more than $70 billion reduced the debt burden on the people of the Island by approximately $24,000 per person in Puerto Rico. The debt restructuring of PREPA is pending. Restructuring the debt, however, was only half of PROMESA’s mandate. In order to fulfill the mandate of PROMESA, fiscal responsibility still needs to be secured over the long term. Necessary improvements to systems and procedures are underway. However, appropriate spending discipline to preserve and institutionalize the recent success and prevent Puerto Rico from falling back into old habits of overpromising and overspending that resulted in bankruptcy has not been achieved. Strong financial management is critical to long-term fiscal stability and will be required to restore access to