[2] 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.

[19] The Migration Division (known as the "Commonwealth Office"), also part of Puerto Rico's Department of Labor, was created in 1948, and by the end of the 1950s, was operating in 115 cities and towns stateside.

U.S. political and economic interventions in Puerto Rico created the conditions for emigration, "by concentrating wealth in the hands of US corporations and displacing workers.

U.S. employers, often with government support, recruited Puerto Ricans as a source of low-wage labor to the United States and other destinations.

New York City neighborhoods such as East Harlem in Upper Manhattan, the South Bronx and Bushwick, Williamsburg in Brooklyn are often the most associated with the stateside Puerto Rican population.

[42] Between the 1950s and the 1980s, large numbers of Puerto Ricans migrated to New York, especially to Brooklyn, The Bronx, and the Spanish Harlem and Loisaida neighborhoods of Manhattan.

"[45] However, more affluent Puerto Rican American professionals have migrated to suburban neighborhoods on Long Island and in Westchester County, New Jersey and Connecticut.

[49] Most sources, including the most reliable, the United States Census Bureau, estimated that as of 2010, Puerto Ricans made up between 70–80 percent of Philadelphia's Latino population.

In 1968, a community group, the Young Lords mounted protests and demonstrations and occupied several buildings of institutions demanding that they invest in low income housing.

[69] Despite Puerto Rican populations in New York and New Jersey being relatively stagnant, other parts of the Northeast continue to see very strong growth, particularly Pennsylvania and Lower New England (Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island).

[70] New York is still a relatively popular destination for those migrating from Puerto Rico, though not as much as in the past, as said earlier Florida and other Northeast states are now receiving larger numerical growth.

[65] U.S. states with higher percentages of Puerto Ricans then the national average (1.6%) as of 2020, are Connecticut (8.0%), Florida (5.3%), New York (5.0%), New Jersey (4.9%), Massachusetts (4.5%), Rhode Island (3.8%), Pennsylvania (3.6%), Hawaii (3.1%), and Delaware (2.9%).

[66] However, Central Florida and Southwestern New England, which is Connecticut and western Massachusetts, have the highest concentrations of Puerto Ricans by percentage of the total populations of these areas as a whole.

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.

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.

[citation needed] With the migration boom due to Hurricane Maria, as well as live births taken into account, the US Puerto Rican population is estimated at 5.8 million as of 2018.

[citation needed] There is also a growing number of Puerto Ricans living in military towns, such as Killeen (Texas), Columbus (Georgia), and the Hampton Roads metro area of Virginia.

Other musical genres such as Pop, Rock, Hip-Hop, R&B, Reggae, Dance, House, Techno, Bolero, Ballads, and Heavy Metal are popular within many Puerto Ricans who mainly use English as their first language.

Bomba, Plena, and Jibaro also have a big music population and community amongst many Stateside Puerto Ricans and can mostly be played during celebrations, especially during Christmas.

Some stateside Puerto Ricans who emerged as popular musicians include Marc Anthony, Jennifer Lopez and Big Pun.

[96] Puerto Rican intermarriage and procreation rates are highest with Dominican Americans, another Caribbean Latino group with very similar culture, high US population numbers, and that usually live in the same neighborhoods.

[97] Numerous Puerto Ricans born and raised in the United States made notable cultural contributions in government, military, television, music, sports, art, law enforcement, modeling, education, journalism, religion, science, among other areas.

In September 2017, following the immense destruction wrought upon Puerto Rico by Hurricane Maria, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo led an aid delegation to San Juan,[98] including engineers from the New York Power Authority to help restore Puerto Rico's electrical grid;[99] subsequently, on the one-year anniversary of the storm, in September 2018, Governor Cuomo announced plans for the official New York State memorial to honor the victims of Hurricane Maria, to be built in Battery Park City, Manhattan, citing the deep cultural connections shared between New Yorkers and Puerto Ricans.

[103] Middle-class neighborhoods predominately populated by Puerto Ricans are mostly found throughout Central Florida, including Orlando, Tampa and their suburbs.

[105] The combined income for stateside Puerto Ricans is a significant share of the large and growing Latino market in the United States and has been attracting increased attention from the media and the corporate sector.

Stateside Puerto Ricans, along with other US Latinos, have experienced the long-term problem of a high school dropout rate that has resulted in relatively low educational attainment.

[62] According to U.S. Census figures, the Puerto Rican population has one of the highest poverty and incarceration rates among all ethnic groups in the United States.

Luis A. Quintana, born in Añasco, Puerto Rico, was sworn in as the first Latino mayor of Newark, New Jersey in November 2013, assuming the unexpired term of Cory Booker, who vacated the position to become a U.S.

[120] On June 26, 2018, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Puerto Rican millennial, won the Democratic primary in New York's 14th congressional district covering parts of The Bronx and Queens in New York City, defeating the incumbent, Democratic Caucus Chair Joe Crowley, in what has been described as the biggest upset victory in the 2018 midterm election season.

[124] There, Puerto Ricans have had persistently low voter registration and turnout rates, despite the relative success they have had in electing their own to significant public offices throughout the United States.