Puerto Rico's unemployment rate rose to 13.5% in August from 13.1% in July.
Total employment went down 0.14% in August from the previous month, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics household survey released on Sept. 19. Year-over-year employment was down 2.8%, according to this survey.
Puerto Rico's unemployment rate is down from a two-year peak of 15.5% it had in December 2013.
Puerto Rico's government has been working to reduce its budget deficit in the face of a skeptical investor community. Puerto Rico's economy shrunk every year from 2007 to 2011 and showed very small growth in 2012 and 2013. Analysts have said that an improved economy would generate more tax revenues and ease the commonwealth's payment of its debt.
Along with its household survey, the bureau also looks at employment through an employer survey. This showed that while government employment in August was down 0.3% compared to August 2013, private sector employment was up 0.7% in the same period.
Advantage Business Consulting President Vicente Feliciano has said gains in the private sector employer survey employment year over year have been a sign of a strengthening economy. When the July employer survey was first released it showed that July's private sector employment was even to July 2013. The bureau has since revised July's data upwards.
The bureau's survey of Puerto Rico private sector employers has shown year over year increases for 10 straight months through August.
In other economic data about Puerto Rico, the Census Bureau said on Sept. 18 that median Puerto Rico household income declined 2.3% in 2013 compared to 2012. In the same period the bureau estimated that median household income increased 0.6% in the nation. Puerto Rico's percentage decline was worse than any state.
The Census data has a broad margin of error and the bureau said there is only a 90% chance that Puerto Rico's median household income went down at all.
In 2013 median household income was $52,250 in the United States and $19,183 in Puerto Rico.
In the same release the Census published Gini coefficients measuring income inequality. This ranges from 0 to 1 with higher values indicating more inequality. Puerto Rico's coefficient of 0.533 is higher than that of any state. It is insignificantly lower than that of Washington, D.C., which had a 0.534 coefficient.
