Institute of Puerto Rican Culture joins Puerto Rico's Financial Transparency System to hold citizens accountable for their income and expenses

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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.

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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.

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PRESS RELEASE

DR. MARIO MARAZZI‐SANTIAGO

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

Statistics Institute announces enrollment period for the first semester of its training courses in data production and analysis

San Juan, PR, October 12, 2018 — The Puerto Rico Statistics Institute (Institute) announced the beginning of the enrollment period for the first semester of its Academies and Workshops for the 2018-2019 fiscal year, whose purpose is to provide the theoretical basis and best practices on issues related to statistics.

For this first semester, several academies and workshops of interest will be offered, including a course online which is included in the curriculum under Virtual Academy. It is called “Ckan as a data tool” and will take place from October 29 to November 5 for a total of 15 hours. For this purpose, the learning platform will be used Moodle and a link will be provided to access it via the Internet.

In addition, the following workshop will be offered “RStudio: Statistical Tool” at the Pre-Basic, Basic, Basic-Intermediate and Intermediate levels. All have a duration of 3 hours. While this time there will be a wide range of Webinars which includes five 1-hour alternatives to choose from. These are:”Tableau Public: Tool for dynamic data visualization”, “Interactive Tools of the U.S. Census Bureau/Update on work towards the 2020 Census”, “Introduction to Python” at Pre-Basic and Basic levels, as well as “QGIS for visualizing municipal data” at Basic Level.

The Institute's Academies and Workshops will be held starting next October 18 and will run until December 14, 2018. Pre-enrollment must be done through the Institute's Online Enrollment System (SML), which can be accessed through the following Internet address: https://estadisticas.pr.gov/academia. The SML requires the applicant to complete a pre-enrollment form and accept the pre-enrollment rules and terms. After the Institute processes the application, the applicant will be notified, by email, if he was officially accepted and enrolled, if he was placed on the waiting list or, on the contrary, the request was denied.

“We urge all interested parties to pre-register on time to ensure their participation as spaces are limited. It is important to remember that, in order to benefit from our Academies and Workshops, it is necessary to register through our website,” said Dr. Orville M. Disdier Flores, Director of the Institute's Academies and Workshops Program.

If you would like to contact Dr. Disdier Flores directly, you can do so at (787) 993-3342 or via email: orville.disdier@estadisticas.pr.

The Institute's Academies and Workshops are primarily aimed at government professionals working in statistical functions, but are also available to individuals and professionals from non-profit institutions and the private sector. Only in the latter case would a small tuition charge apply. For government employees, courses are free of charge, and employees of non-profit organizations can request a fee waiver.

The curricular design of these courses, which are offered every semester, takes into consideration the fact that statistical analysis is not an isolated process since it is strongly linked to other activities, such as sample design and data entry management. It is for this reason that the courses cover everything from basic topics to more specialized or advanced topics, to address the challenges in data management that public and private organizations face on a daily basis.

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. The Institute has in its inventory, accessible through www.estadisticas.pr.gov, over 300 statistical products. In addition, it is a custodian and provides access to over 100 data sets or “data sets” through www.data.pr.gov and to over 40 tables and more than 6 thousand indicators through: www.indicadores.pr.

In addition, as the leading entity of the SDC in Puerto Rico, the Institute manages the SDC portal, which contains the main statistical reports and publications of the U.S. Census Bureau on Puerto Rico, specifically those that are most in demand, such as annual population estimates; the Puerto Rico Community Survey (Puerto Rico Community Survey) and official statistics on Puerto Rico's 10-year population and housing censuses, among others. The Puerto Rico SDC portal can be accessed through: https://censo.estadisticas.pr/.

For more information you can visit our website: www.estadisticas.pr.gov. In addition, you can follow us on social networks through Facebook (estadisticas.pr), Twitter (@EstadisticasPR) and LinkedIn (Institute of Statistics of Puerto Rico) accounts.

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Press Contact: Sandra Morales Blanes/(787) 688-0401

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