page_title: Stateside Puerto Ricans
section_title: Migration trends since 2000
hierarchical_section_title: Stateside Puerto Ricans / Migration trends since 2000
caption_attribution_description: English: Bruno Mars performing in Houston, Texas on November 24, 2010
context_page_description: A Stateside Puerto Rican, also ambiguously Puerto Rican American, or Puerto Ricans in the United States is a term for residents in the United States proper, District of Columbia and the 50 US states, who were born in or trace family ancestry to the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico.
  Aside from the US mainland and Puerto Rico itself, the US Virgin Islands, also a US territory, has a large Puerto Rican population. Like Stateside Virgin Islands Americans, Stateside Puerto Ricans are West Indian Americans who hold US citizenship and who have migrated to the US proper, and their descendants. Puerto Ricans who were born in Puerto Rico are US citizens, consequently, using the term "Puerto Rican American" only for those living in a U.S. state or incorporated territory is confusing if taken out of context.
  At 9.7% of the Hispanic/Latino population in the United States, Puerto Ricans are the second-largest Latino group nationwide, after Mexican Americans and are 1.77% of the entire population of the United States. Stateside Puerto Ricans are also the largest Caribbean-origin group in the country, representing over one-third of people with origins in the geographic Caribbean region.
context_section_description: New York State has resumed its net in-migration of Puerto Rican Americans since 2006, a dramatic reversal from being the only state to register a decrease in its Puerto Rican population between 1990 and 2000. The Puerto Rican population of New York State, still the largest in the United States, is estimated by the U.S. Census Bureau to have increased from 1,070,558 in 2010 to 1,103,067 in 2013.
  Puerto Rican migration trends since 2006 have been highly complex: New York State gained more Puerto Rican migrants from Puerto Rico (31% of the mainland total) as well as from elsewhere on the mainland (20% of interstate moves) between 2006 and 2012 than any other U.S. state, in absolute numbers, even while the southern United States gained the highest number as an overall national region. Also, unlike the initial pattern of migration several decades ago, this second significant Puerto Rican migration into New York and surrounding states is being driven by movement not only into New York City proper, but also into the city's surrounding suburban areas, including areas outside New York State, especially Northern New Jersey, such that the New York City metropolitan area gained the highest number of additional Puerto Rican Americans of any metropolitan area between 2010 and 2016, from 1,177,430 in 2010 to 1,494,670 in 2016.
  Florida witnessed an even larger increase than New York State between 2010 and 2013, from 847,550 in 2010 to 987,663 in 2013, with significant migration from Puerto Rico, as well as some migration from Chicago and New York to Florida. However, most of the Puerto Rican migration to Florida has been to the central portion of the state, surrounding Orlando. Orlando and to a lesser degree Philadelphia and Tampa have witnessed large increases in their Puerto Rican populations between 2010 and 2013 and now have some of the fastest growing Puerto Rican populations in the country. According to the Pew Research Center, Puerto Rican arrivals from the island since 2000 are also less well off than earlier migrants, with lower household incomes and a greater likelihood of living in poverty. After Hurricane Maria struck Puerto Rico in September 2017, devastating the infrastructure of the island, New York, Florida and New Jersey were expected to be the three likeliest destinations for Puerto Rican migrants to the U.S. mainland, when premised upon family ties.
  Since Hurricane Maria in September 2017, about 400,000 Puerto Ricans (and counting) have left the island for the US mainland, either permanently or temporarily. Nearly half of which went to the state of Florida alone, especially to the metropolitan areas of Orlando and Miami, and to a lesser degree Tampa and Jacksonville. The other half are spreading out throughout the country, but went mostly to the metropolitan areas of Philadelphia, New York, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland and numerous smaller cities across the US Northeast. The 2017 population count was 5.5 million, now with the migration boom due to Hurricane Maria, as well as live births taken into account, the US Puerto Rican population is now estimated at 6 million as of 2018. This drop in Puerto Rico's population resulting in the increase in the stateside Puerto Rican population, is the result of Hurricane Maria and other recent natural disasters, as well as economic decline on the island, however many Puerto Ricans have since been moving back, though not enough to reverse the population decline in Puerto Rico.
caption: Bruno Mars
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