To amend Articles 8 and 10 of Law No. 85-2017, as amended, known as the “Law Against Harassment and Intimidation or 'Bullying' of the Government of Puerto Rico” or “Alexander Santiago Martínez Act”; to amend paragraph (i) of Article 9.07 of Law No. 85-2018, as amended, known as the “Puerto Rico Education Reform Act”; add a new paragraph (d); and renumber the current paragraphs (d) to (u) as paragraphs (e) to (v) of Article 5 of Act No. 209-2003, as amended, known as the “Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics Act”, so that the data obtained and submitted in the annual report on the notification of cases of harassment, including “bullying” and cyberbullying, in public and private schools, higher education institutions and universities, are sent simultaneously by the Secretaries of Education and State to the Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics, for statistical interpretation by subject, so that public policies for the prevention and prohibition of harassment can be uniformly implemented; then submit to Secretariats of the House of Representatives and Senate of Puerto Rico; make grammatical and stylistic corrections; and adapt to current legislation.
Exploring Economic and Social Reality: Statistics and Their Impact
The collaborative activity, between the Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics and the United States Census Bureau, took place on Friday, October 4, 2024, at the Criollo Center for Caribbean Science and Technology (C3Tec). The purpose of the conference was to clarify various sources and statistics available to the public. As part of the mission of both entities, to provide statistical information on the jurisdiction of Puerto Rico, two sections were organized aimed at the audience of the government, private sector, academia and researchers, as well as the general public.
The Initiative:
The conference focused on economic and social indicators for the jurisdiction of Puerto Rico, covering multiple specific indicators and showing participants the tools or sources to access them. Among the topics presented were the following: Building Permit Survey, Quarterly Workforce Indicators, Community Resilience Estimates, Census Business Builder, Puerto Rico Profile webpage, Migration and Workforce Structure and the Cost of Living Index (COLI). At the end of the conference, the diverse information shared was reviewed and related questions and doubts were addressed, in order to guide participants to explore economic and social aspects of Puerto Rico using the available statistics.
Presentations:
U.S. Census Bureau
Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics
Materials:
Exploring Economic and Social Reality: Statistics and Their Impact
The collaborative activity, between the Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics and the United States Census Bureau, took place on Friday, October 4, 2024, at the Criollo Center for Caribbean Science and Technology (C3Tec). The purpose of the conference was to clarify various sources and statistics available to the public. As part of the mission of both entities, to provide statistical information on the jurisdiction of Puerto Rico, two sections were organized aimed at the audience of the government, private sector, academia and researchers, as well as the general public.
The Initiative:
The conference focused on economic and social indicators for the jurisdiction of Puerto Rico, covering multiple specific indicators and showing participants the tools or sources to access them. Among the topics presented were the following: Building Permit Survey, Quarterly Workforce Indicators, Community Resilience Estimates, Census Business Builder, Puerto Rico Profile webpage, Migration and Workforce Structure and the Cost of Living Index (COLI). At the end of the conference, the diverse information shared was reviewed and related questions and doubts were addressed, in order to guide participants to explore economic and social aspects of Puerto Rico using the available statistics.
Presentations:
U.S. Census Bureau
Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics
Materials:
Video Summary
San Juan, Puerto Rico — July 10, 2024. The Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics released the results of the Cost of Living Index (COLI) for the first quarter of 2024, whose data show that the urban area of Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) of San Juan-Bayamón-Caguas, is ranked 82nd out of 301 urban areas in terms of overall cost of living in the United States, with a composite index of 102.3. The 15 municipalities that make up the San Juan-Bayamón-Caguas MSA are: Bayamón, Caguas, Canovanas, Carolina, Cataño, Cidra, Dorado, Gurabo, Guaynabo, Rio Grande, San Juan, Toa Alta, Toa Baja, Trujillo Alto and Vega Alta.
At the national level, the average cost of living is set at an index of 100. The composite index of 102.3 for the urban area of the San Juan-Bayamón-Caguas MSA indicates that living in this region is 2.3% more expensive than the average of the 301 participating urban areas nationwide.
The composite index is derived from six main categories of consumer spending, of which the following table presents the Rankings for the urban area of the San Juan-Bayamón-Caguas MSA. The combination of higher costs in supermarkets and utilities is partially offset by relatively low costs in health care and miscellaneous goods.
About the Cost of Living Index (COLI):
COLI is a crucial tool for understanding regional differences in the costs of consumer goods and services. The indices are calculated based on data collected quarterly by different entities in each participating urban area. The COLI has been calculated in urban areas of the United States since 1968, using the methodology developed by the Council for Community and Economic Research (C2ER), a non-profit organization dedicated to research on community and economic development. The Puerto Rico Statistics Institute, together with the network of members affiliated with C2ER, is responsible for collecting prices for goods and services established by C2ER.
The Puerto Rico Statistics Institute has designed a comparative calculator for the cost of living between the urban area of the San Juan-Bayamón-Caguas MSA and the rest of the participating cities in the United States. This tool is available at: https://apps.estadisticas.pr/coli/.
The Puerto Rico Statistics Institute is an autonomous governmental entity responsible for coordinating the Government's statistical production service to ensure that the data collection and statistics systems, on which public policies are based, are complete, reliable, and have quick and universal access.
For more information you can visit the website: www.estadisticas.pr or write to preguntas@estadisticas.pr. They can also follow social networks through Facebook (@estadisticas .pr), X (@EstadisticasPR), LinkedIn (Institute of Statistics of Puerto Rico) and Instagram (@institutodeestadisticas) accounts.
Dr. Orville M. Disdier, Executive Director of the Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics (PRIS), offered a presentation at a recent meeting of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC).
The Executive Director offered a presentation as part of a virtual expert group meeting on statistics for sustainable development ECLAC associate member countries. Dr. Disdier highlighted Puerto Rico's significant economic challenges, such as outmigration and high energy costs. He emphasized the importance of including Puerto Rico in a wide range of statistical products to effectively address these challenges and formulate informed public policies. PRIS, as an independent public agency, plays a critical role in ensuring access to comprehensive and reliable statistics.
Dr. Disdier underscored the gaps in federal statistical products, noting that Puerto Rico is included in only 81 of 449 federal statistical products.
PRIS has been instrumental in addressing various statistical issues, such as correcting mortality statistics and eliminating biases in economic indicators. The presentation highlighted the crucial role of international statistical reports in promoting informed decision-making and public accountability, and gaining economic insights.
Dr. Disdier proposed steps to enhance Puerto Rico's inclusion in international reports, emphasizing the need for a detailed list of existing reports, prioritizing reports by importance, and establishing contact with experts to ensure technical assistance.
The Puerto Rico Statistics Institute and the Puerto Rico Department of Justice signed an agreement that will enable the use of data, on the level of risk of victims in cases of domestic violence, with the purpose of creating new policies and strategies to prevent intimate femicide.
As part of the “Interagency Agreement for the Disclosure of Sociodemographic Data on Victims of Domestic Violence,” the Department of Justice will share with the Institute the results of the risk assessments that prosecutors carry out on victims of domestic violence to analyze the scale of risk and danger of death they face.
The data and statistics that will be generated, through these epidemiological processes, can be used to identify possible determinants, risk factors and vulnerabilities. As a result of this agreement, the Puerto Rico Statistics Institute will be able to provide complete, reliable statistics with quick and universal access, with the purpose of helping to prevent violence and intimate femicide.
Puerto Rico Statistics Institute participates in the hearing of the Natural Resources Committee of the United States House of Representatives
Washington, DC — June 21, 2024. The Puerto Rico Statistics Institute (Institute) participated in the hearing of the Subcommittee on Indigenous and Insular Affairs of the Committee on Natural Resources of the United States House of Representatives. During the hearing, entitled Examining the findings of the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to address data breaches and improve data collection in the territories, the importance of having high-quality statistics for effective democratic governance and the appropriate allocation of government resources was emphasized.
The representative of the Institute at these hearings, Mr. Jacobo Orenstein Cardona, said that the Institute supports the recent GAO report, which recommends “that the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) ensure that your Chief Statistician develops a coordinated approach at the government level so that federal statistical agencies, in consultation with U.S. territories and other stakeholders, examine the costs, benefits and feasibility of including territories in statistical products and, as appropriate, identify ways to address any data gaps.”
During his presentation, Orenstein-Cardona, who is also the Institute's executive assistant, emphasized that “high-quality statistics are fundamental to a functional democracy because they provide a factual basis for making informed decisions. In a democratic society, the ability of citizens to make educated decisions about their governance and policies is paramount.”
Among other issues, Orenstein-Cardona emphasized that “high-quality statistics help in the allocation of government resources, since they indicate where more investment is needed, whether in education, health, infrastructure or other areas. They also promote a culture of responsibility, where public officials are responsible for their decisions and the results obtained.”
Orenstein-Cardona concluded his presentation by mentioning that, “through collaboration with federal and local governments, the Institute can serve as an intermediary and contribute significantly to the inclusion of Puerto Rico in federal statistical products. This will allow for comparability with other jurisdictions in the United States and will improve the reliability of statistics for the benefit of the entire population of Puerto Rico.”
The Puerto Rico Statistics Institute is an autonomous governmental entity responsible for coordinating the Government's statistical production service to ensure that the data collection and statistics systems, on which public policies are based, are complete, reliable, and have quick and universal access.
For more information you can visit the website: www.estadisticas.pr or write to preguntas@estadisticas.pr. They can also follow social networks through Facebook (@estadisticas .pr), X (@EstadisticasPR), LinkedIn (Institute of Statistics of Puerto Rico) and Instagram (@institutodeestadisticas) accounts.
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