Excerpt: "The Trump administration imposed severe restrictions on Wednesday on billions of dollars in emergency relief to Puerto Rico, including blocking spending on the island's electrical grid and suspending its $15-an-hour minimum wage for federally funded relief work."
The Trump administration imposed severe restrictions on billions of dollars in emergency relief to Puerto Rico, including blocking spending on the island's electrical grid. (photo: Erika P. Rodriguez/The New York Times)
Trump Attaches Severe Restrictions to Puerto Rico's Long-Delayed Disaster Aid
17 January 20
Days after the island was hit by a 5.9-magnitude earthquake, the White House released billions in aid but placed limits on how it can be spent.
he Trump administration imposed severe restrictions on Wednesday on billions of dollars in emergency relief to Puerto Rico, including blocking spending on the island’s electrical grid and suspending its $15-an-hour minimum wage for federally funded relief work.
The nearly $16 billion in funding, released while Puerto Ricans still sleep on the streets for fear of aftershocks from last week’s earthquake, is part of $20 billion that Congress allocated for disaster recovery and preparation more than a year ago, in response to the commonwealth being hit by back-to-back hurricanes in 2017.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development had released only $1.5 billion of the congressional relief, citing concerns about political corruption. Of that, only $5 million has been spent.
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