Hey, im puertorican myself so heres hoping I can clarify. First its important to remember you're covering 2 decades of development in the island. The Puerto Rico of the early 1940's is somewhat different than that of the 1960's especially by the coast line. The ports of Sanjuan and Ponce developed inmensely during ww2 and saw gradual expansion after the war. As you know by the end of the 1940's "operation bootstrap" known locally as "operacion manos a la obra" began thus fluding the island with new investments. These investemnts began in the coastlines as to what you would typically expect ex: Hotels, new trading companies, super markets, us gas station brands, automobile dealerships etc. While the project did make great progress in the interior (which is rural and mountanous).The most important developments for rural comunities were the new paved roads which made transit to and from the coast or major towns much easier. These new roads not only improved local/regional travel, they had an economical impact of their own as many new small buisnesses would crop up along side them. While the island is too small for conventional road/pit stops, many local food stalls/"chinchorros" set up near the factories or near the rural exits. These local small buisnesses would make a decent living servicing mem coming to and from their new industrial jobs. A funny little development to is the rise of baby boys being named Usmail in the rural areas as the new roads made the U.S. mail system much more prevalent in their lives.

Politically this period of 1940's to 1960's is dominated in the first half by Luiz Muñoz Marins creation of the "estado libre associado" or free associated state than funtioned as a commonwealth. The man was a political power house, he knew what the people wanted and how to give it to them. For example he legitimised all bastards in the island making them legally able to carry their fathers last name regardless of the fathers wishes (I don't agree with Luiz Muñoz Marin in many things but he was without equal as the most popular politician of his time). The period was also noted for the US and new puertorican government strongly suppressing independent, nationalist, and especially communist sentiment. The "gag law" or Ley de la Mordaza made it illegal to speak out against the US government in any way, it also made it illegal to display the puertorican flag. This law was used to arrest thousands of puertorican without due process because of their political views. There was an attempted revolution in the 1950's by some militaristic elements of the Independence movement which ended in absolute failure. The F.B.I working with puertorican police already knew about the attempt in advance, they let it start just to squash it. The national guard was sent into the rural areas where they suspected more rebels to be held up in strong holds but the fact was the rebels did not have the support of the people, the few dozen of them left simply melted away in an attempt to escape the law.

Back to economics, the puertorican workers were definately treated worse and paid less than their equivalent in the mainland US. Many workers attempts to unionized were impeded by the gag law which would simply lock up the leaders as "communist instigators". Many of the civil rights movements actions in Puerto Rico were aimed at worker equity as well as racial equality. The shifting of island the rich from colonial era old money land owning families to newer American industrialist also had a noticeable impact in the politics of the era. Politicians were no longer incentiviced to make movement around the island harder or make competition in various markets impossible. I'm sure I missed a lot, I can't condense 20 years worth of information into a few paragraphs but hopefully this gives you a better understanding of the economic/political happenings of the time.