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Why are the unincorporated territories of the USA so poor (Puerto Rico, USVI, Guam)?Let’s compare the “poverty” of Puerto Rico, a Territory of the United States, with the “poverty “of Mississippi, a southern state of the Union.--Puerto Rico imports over $49,000,000,000 worth of goods from the mainland, or the equivalent of over $14,000 per each individual residing on the island. https://theodora.com/wfbcurrent/puerto_rico/puerto_rico_economy.html--If you live in Mississippi and considered “poor,” you have numerous resources available to you, but out of reach if you reside in Puerto Rico.The average Mississippian pays $1 to the United States treasury in taxes. In return, the average individual from Mississippi gets $3.09 in benefits from the U.S. treasury.--The average income per household in Mississippi is $33,520. The “average” in Puerto Rico is $19,518 (other sources provide variant averages to include annual incomes over $30,000). The benefits accrued to Mississippians and other States are quite significant.The average federal income tax paid by a Mississippian household in 2014 was $8,437. In return, the federal treasury returned to the State, $26,070.33 (equaling $3.09 in exchange for $1), for the average tax payer in benefits. These benefits may include:1. Supplemental Security Income (SSI) of $1,125 monthly or $13,500/yearly per couple—if you are poor, income under ($22,995 year)2. SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, up to $760 per month or $9,000 per year.3. Child Tax Credit (for a working parent)—up to $6,000 per year (for 3 children)--A very poor person in Mississippi is eligible for useful benefits upward of $28,500. The most a poor person residing in Puerto Rico can get is $250 per month on SNAP befits or $3,000 per year. There is no tax advantage for residents of Puerto Rico. If the people from the island were to pay federal income tax, the majority most likely would enjoy the tax benefits in parity with Mississippians, and just with the SNAP and Child Tax Credit, the average Puerto Rican income would advance to $34,518 per year. Likewise, if you were to remove these benefits from the average Mississippian the yearly income for him would fall to $18,570—making the majority of Mississippians poor.Thus, Puerto Rico is a very “rich” Territory when compared with over 5 states of the Union, and no country in South or Central America can be compared with Puerto Rico. To calculate the poverty of a given Territory or State, you have to ‘deduct’ the many federal benefits granted to a State but denied to a Territory.If you send to the United States Treasury $1.00 and the Treasury send you $3.09 in return, you're getting triple the return on your money. So that means, that more than a few states of the Union are above the so-called poverty level secondary to their dependence on the Treasury of the United States, something not available to Puerto Rico.

In dollar terms the people who pay the vast majority of tax revenue are gong to get the most tax reduction in terms of dollars.The data demonstrates that the U.S. individual income tax continues to be very progressive, borne mainly by the highest income earners.In 2014, 139.6 million taxpayers reported earning $9.71 trillion in adjusted gross income and paid $1.37 trillion in individual income taxes.The share of income earned by the top 1 percent of taxpayers rose to 20.6 percent in 2014. Their share of federal individual income taxes also rose, to 39.5 percent.In 2014, the top 50 percent of all taxpayers paid 97.3 percent of all individual income taxes while the bottom 50 percent paid the remaining 2.7 percent.The top 1 percent paid a greater share of individual income taxes (39.5 percent) than the bottom 90 percent combined (29.1 percent).The top 1 percent of taxpayers paid a 27.1 percent individual income tax rate, which is more than seven times higher than taxpayers in the bottom 50 percent (3.5 percent).Summary of the Latest Federal Income Tax Data, 2016 Update - Tax Foundation(emphasis added)A person or family earning $56K will pay little or nothing in income tax as a result of tax reform, and may well get an increased refund from the increased child tax credit and EITC.

"In-work benefits" are benefits, receipt of which is not dependent on being out of work. So tax credits, housing benefit, child benefit etc are in-work benefits. Job seekers' allowance is not.Denying them to non-UK nationals simply because they are non-UK nationals would be discriminatory and illegal under EU law. It is thus not a live option. We could alter our system to a contributions based system, and then deny the benefits to immigrants because they haven't contributed for X years, but this would also affect UK nationals who had not paid in also. That sort of reform would be a massive political undertaking.In terms of the sums of money at play:EU migrants on benefits: separating the statistics from the spinThere is also a lack of wider context. EU migrants make up only a small proportion of the overall benefits caseload. They accounted for 2.5% of benefits the DWP administered in 2014 - mostly out-of-work benefits - in 2014, and 7% of tax credits, based on the HMRC definition discussed above.The DWP analysis says EU migrants on “in-work” benefits cost the taxpayer £530m in 2013. That represents a modest 1.6% of the year’s total tax credit bill.Not very much money, if you ask me. £0.5bn is peanuts in the context of welfare.