There is perhaps no more powerful indication of the challenges facing Puerto Rican society than the enormous number of compatriots who, over the past 20 years, finding no means here for the life to which they aspire, have left the island.

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From 2005 to the present, the net population loss of the island has been approximately 800,000, which represents an alarming 25% of the 3.2 million of us who are still here. After a downward trend that lasted from 2019 - when, because of Hurricane Maria, the net emigration record was set - the number of people leaving the island rebounded again.

The most recent U.S. Census Bureau community survey indicates that in 2023, 43,800 people will leave Puerto Rico. Subtract the 23,588 who settled here in the same period and we are talking about a net loss of 19,712 in that period. Some may say that it is not that much, but, as demographer Raúl Figueroa told this newspaper, it is if we consider that it is a trend that has been going on for two decades.

Massive emigration, added to the drop in the birth rate, a phenomenon that has the same root as emigration, has made us an older country in just two decades. In 2000, our average age was 32 years; today it is 44.8, making us one of the oldest countries in the world. The aging population caused by both phenomena represents an immense demographic challenge whose consequences are already beginning to be seen, but which unfortunately has been largely ignored by the political class.

This problem is rooted in a number of factors, among them, the difficulties in accessing public services, obtaining jobs to raise a family and move up the social ladder, even receiving medical care and sending children to functioning public schools, plus how easy it is in theory to move to a prosperous country like the United States.

To all these problems must be added the persistent difficulties of the electrical system, whose rehabilitation, after decades of neglect by those who administered it before, is in process, although at a pace that has tested the patience of the population.

The enormity of a challenge like this, with a million ramifications, may seem overwhelming. But, as the saying goes, Rome was not made in a day, nor will such complex problems, some of which have been simmering for decades, disappear quickly, not even by magic.

But every race, however long it may be, is completed one step at a time and this is one that we cannot remain paralyzed for a moment longer. We urge, then, the candidates who aspire to be elected in November to disclose in detail what they will do to make viable the construction of a society in which more people want to live, so that we can judge their understanding of this sad reality.

The demand is clear: an economy with good opportunities for all, public services that work, access to medical care, adequate schools, affordable care centers, the essentials, what we have been lacking, to live in peace and prosperity.

This is, in short, what every person in every town aspires to.

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This content was translated from Spanish to English using artificial intelligence and was reviewed by an editor before being published.