San Juan. The Office of the Comptroller of Puerto Rico published a coordinated audit on the effectiveness of the public policy actions to: reduce poverty and child poverty, mitigate the impact of COVID-19, and narrow the gender gap.
The audit, led by the Argentina General Audit Office, analyzes the panorama of Puerto Rico with respect to the Sustainable Development Goal, End of Poverty, according to the 2030 Agenda of the United Nations Organization.
The Special Report reveals that, although a legal framework was established to mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic through the creation of an Advisory Commission by Executive Order on May 25, 2021, it was not in operation nor was a structure created for its implementation. The Advisory Commission was formed by 11 officials who only met on one occasion.
The audit indicates that the Executive Order did not include methods of citizen participation nor actions to narrow the gender gap to address the objectives. In addition, the eight representatives of universities, the private sector and the nonprofit entities were not appointed to the Advisory Commission.
The Government of Puerto Rico established on December 31, 2021, the Commission to Combat Poverty through Act 84-2021, to reduce child poverty and social inequality by 50% by 2032, among other objectives. According to data from the United States Census as of 2022, 42% of the population and 58% of those under 18 years of age lived in a situation of poverty on the island.
However, the necessary mechanisms to fulfill the objectives were not established, since the state and federal initiatives were not integrated with those of the municipal governments, the nonprofit entities and those of the private sector. In addition, the Commission had not prepared a strategic plan, nor a list of the funds available at the federal and state level, and the law also did not include methods of citizen participation, among others.
For fiscal year 2023, a budget of $1,200,000 had been approved to fund the Program against Child Poverty. However, as of January 20, 2023, these funds had not been used. This situation prevented measuring the progress to reduce child poverty.
With respect to the achievement of the goals to mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the narrowing of the gender gap, the Report indicates that a campaign was implemented to promote the application for the child tax credit, but no additional actions to the public policy of reducing child poverty and poverty were established. As of October 6, 222,327 returns had been filed with the Federal Internal Revenue Service with the claim of the child tax credit. This represented 73% of the total families that qualified. In the long term, the impact of these funds cannot be determined since it is not a recurring aid.
The Special Report lists the federal and state programs, and their purpose to mitigate poverty by Government agency. In addition, it details the amount of the various laws and programs of the Government to address the COVID-19 pandemic such as the CARES Act, CRTRA Act and the ARPA Act, among others The special report covers the period from January 1, 2020 to December 31, 2022.
Some documents on this page are saved in PDF format.
To view these documents, you must have the following free program installed.
