Fewer people left Puerto Rico

This is detailed in the most recent Migrant Profile 2021-2022

San Juan, PR, December 11, 2023 — During the calendar years 2021 and 2022, data from the Community Survey indicate that the net migration balance between Puerto Rico and the United States decreased from -27 to -16 thousand people emigrating or by -41%. This was revealed by the 2021-2022 Migrant Profile, which was published today by the Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics, and which presents an overview of the migratory movement in Puerto Rico in the calendar year 2021 and 2022. On the other hand, the values continue to reflect more people leaving than entering the jurisdiction in both years. Here are several key findings:

1. Between 2021 and 2022, Puerto Rico's migration indicators according to the Community Survey showed that:
   • the number of emigrants to the United States was estimated at about 55 thousand and 43 thousand people respectively, resulting in a decrease of -21%. Since 2010, the figure had not been lower than 60,000 emigrants
   • about 27,000 people immigrated to Puerto Rico each year
   • in net terms, the migratory balance between Puerto Rico and the United States decreased from -27 to -16 thousand people emigrating or by -41%.
   • The median age of the emigrant population decreased from 31.9 to 30.3 years, and immigrants were younger than emigrants, showing a reduction in the median age from 39 to 33.8 years.
   • The net migratory balance of the population with some post-secondary education or more decreased from about ten thousand (2021) to four thousand (2022) people emigrating.
2. DDuring the last twelve years of available information (2010-2019 and 2021-2022), it was estimated, according to the Community Survey, that some 649,000 more people have moved from residence to the United States from Puerto Rico than from the United States to Puerto Rico.
3. In 2022, passenger flow indicated that:
   • The net movement by plane from Puerto Rico to all destinations (not just the United States) had between seven (-7) thousand and one thousand (-1) passengers according to the U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) and the Port Authority (AP), respectively.
   • the net movement of passengers by sea (ferry) between Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic was less than one thousand (724) passengers, according to Caribbean Ferries.
4. The geographical distribution of emigrants to the United States was:
   • In 2022, as a destination for emigrants, 47% to the Southern region, 25% to the Northeast region and 16% to the Midwest region.
   • the Northeastern region reflected a gradual decrease in emigrants from 47% in 2005 to 25% in 2022.
   • The five states with the highest emigration from Puerto Rico were:
     • in 2021 Florida, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia and New Jersey.
     • in 2022 Florida, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas and New Jersey.

“The indicators indicate a reduction in net emigration in recent years. In other words, a decline has been identified in the notorious net migratory flows that prevailed from 2011 to 2019, where net emigration represented between 1.1% and 3.5% of the total annual population of Puerto Rico. Net emigration in 2021 and 2022 represented 0.8% and 0.5% of the total population, respectively. On the other hand, we cannot lose sight of the fact that more people continue to leave than those who enter, which continues to alter the demographic composition of our jurisdiction,” said Alberto L. Velázquez-Estrada, Senior Manager of Statistical Projects at the Institute.

(A graph is included with the series of migration estimates (2005-2022) according to the Community Survey and link to the visualization of the Puerto Rican population in the United States in recent decades as part of the Introduction to the Migrant Profile And to the Maps with the distribution of emigrants by Profile states.)

For more details and information on the full report of the 2021-2022 Migrant Profile, as well as previous publications, you can access the Publications section of the Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics at the link: https://estadisticas.pr/en/publicaciones.

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As the lead entity of Puerto Rico's SDC program, the Institute manages the SDC page, 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 decennial population and housing censuses, among others.

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.pror on social networks through Facebook (@estadisticas .pr), Twitter (@EstadisticasPR) and LinkedIn (Institute of Statistics of Puerto Rico) accounts.

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Contacts:

Lourdes Burgos, R-27, 787-562-2932

Idia M. Martinez, R-28, 787-603-3200

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BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF THE INSTITUTE OF STATISTICS ANNOUNCES THE ELECTION OF ARNALDO CRUZ, CO-FOUNDER OF ABRE PUERTO RICO, AS ITS NEW PRESIDENT

San Juan, PR, August 1, 2018 — The Board of Directors of the Puerto Rico Statistics Institute (Institute) today announced the unanimous election of Arnaldo Cruz, co-founder of Abre Puerto Rico and director of Research and Analysis of Foundation for Puerto Rico, as the new president of the organization.

Cruz was elected at the first meeting of the Institute's Board of Directors held yesterday afternoon and in accordance with the provisions of Section VII of the Institute's Internal Regulations. It establishes that the members who will occupy seats on the Executive Committee, composed of the President, Vice President and Secretary of the Board, will be elected during the first meeting of the Board of Directors at the beginning of each fiscal year and by a majority vote of those present.

“I am grateful for the opportunity given to me to work with an excellent team such as the Institute of Statistics, under the executive direction of Dr. Mario Marazzi-Santiago,” said the new President of the Board of Directors of the Institute, who holds a master's degree in Public Policy from Harris School of Public Policy Studies, from the University of Chicago.

“I accept this great challenge, aware of the great need that our government has to improve the accessibility and quality of its statistics and the enormous fiscal challenges for these purposes. At the Institute of Statistics, we are available to support the Government of Puerto Rico and achieve important goals of common interest, such as the quality of public data and government transparency, in all aspects,” Cruz said.

On the other hand, the position of vice-president of the Board of Directors of the Institute will be occupied by the doctor in Economics, Antonio J. Fernós, who served as president for the past 2 years and the position of secretary by the Lcdo. Alex López, who is currently serving as an advisor to the Puerto Rico Senate.

Meanwhile, Ana L. Dávila, PhD in Demography and professor of the Demography Program at the University of Puerto Rico (UPR), Medical Sciences Campus, Ana L. Dávila and the PhDs in Statistics and professors from the Faculty of Business Administration of the UPR, Recinto de Río Piedras, Marta Álvarez and Sonia C. Balet, will continue as members of the Board of Directors.

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 https://estadisticas.pr.gov, about 300 statistical products. In addition, it is a custodian and provides access to over 100 data sets or “data sets” through https://data.pr.gov and to over 40 tables and more than 6 thousand indicators through: https://www.indicadores.pr.

In addition, as the leading entity of the State Data Center (SDC) of 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: https://estadisticas.pr.gov. In addition, you can follow us on social networks through Facebook accounts (https://www.facebook.com/estadisticas.pr), Twitter (https://twitter.com/estadisticaspr) and LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/instituto-de-estadisticas-de-puerto-rico.

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

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The Institute asks the Court to resolve the legal dispute related to the composition of its Board of Directors, assuring that there is “real and serious harm” caused to its supervisory functions

San Juan, PR, February 21, 2018 — The Puerto Rico Statistics Institute (Institute) filed a motion before the San Juan Court of First Instance reiterating its request for a Declaratory Judgment and Injuction requested following the legal controversy that arose last summer and which has not yet been resolved.

The request was submitted yesterday, February 20, 2018 and as a prelude to an argumentative hearing that has been scheduled for next Tuesday, February 27, with the objective of the parties' lawyers arguing their respective submitted motions and evaluating the possibility of resolving the case with the written documents already submitted.

Through the legal remedy presented, it is explained how the situation represents “real and serious harm” to the implementation of the Institute's Organic Law (Law 209-2003), in particular, the oversight of statistical functions and products as well as the award of disputes over those who have not complied with information requests issued by the Executive Director.

“Six months have passed since this lawsuit began, and at the Institute, as well as in some cases among the general public in Puerto Rico, in the United States and in the world, the effects have begun to be seen,” the Institute states in the appeal filed and then enumerated the damages suffered due to the lack of an operating Board of Directors.

Below, we highlight some of the damages outlined in the filed motion:

1. Without the Board of Directors, the Institute has not been able to establish the standards, nomenclatures and classification of methods that the Government must follow to estimate the number of deaths caused by hurricanes Irma and María, and to then be able to monitor the quality and reliability of the statistical products generated by the Government on these deaths. In fact, the President of the American Statistical Association, the largest professional association of statisticians in the world, wrote a letter last month to the Governor to express her disappointment at the exclusion of expert experts from the Institute of Statistics in the accounting of deaths from hurricanes, in Executive Order 2018-01.
2. Without the Board of Directors, the Institute has been unable to approve the hiring of an engineering expert to provide technical assistance to the Electric Power Authority so that it can for the first time provide the federal Government with statistics for each generation plant, as required by the U.S. Energy Information Administration, for every electric power supplier in the United States. Worse yet, without these statistics, it has not been possible to design an adequate plan for the recovery of the electrical system, after hurricanes Irma and María destroyed it.
3. Without the Board of Directors, the Institute has been unable to respond to numerous requests related to information requests, which has virtually stopped the implementation of Law 187-2015, also known as the Law on the Interagency Validation Portal for the Granting of Incentives for Economic Development, an important anti-corruption and transparency tool, which facilitates the interagency oversight of tax incentives granted by public government agencies to private entities.
4. Without the Board of Directors, the Institute has been unable to recruit the resources to carry out the Consumer Expenditure Survey, which we were about to begin this year, after it had not been conducted in almost 2 decades.

“The damage caused to Puerto Rico is real. In the absence of a Board of Directors, the Institute has been unable to take action to ensure that statistics on the impact of hurricanes are reliable and meet quality methodologies and criteria, at a time when the entire world has questioned these statistics from the Government of Puerto Rico,” the Institute points out in the legal resource. In addition, it requests the Court to issue the requested Declaratory Judgment and Injunction so that the Institute can be certain about who makes up, in law, its Board of Directors and can deal with pending and future matters as required by Law 209-2003.

On the other hand, the motion presented by the Institute states that the recent letter from the Fiscal Oversight Board about the Institute dismisses from its face the “removals” of the Institute's Board members under Act 3. He assures that, beyond the constitutional questions about the way in which the Governor has sought to remove 4 of the members of the Board of Directors, the only thing Law 3 could apply to Institute officials is if they represent a problem or a potential problem for the Governor of Puerto Rico to formulate and implement the fiscal plan required by PROMESA. “All the components created under the federal PROMESA law have highlighted the importance of keeping the Institute free from political intervention,” the Institute maintains in its motion, so there is no way to use the federal PROMESA Act to justify the removal of members of the Institute's Board of Directors.

On the other hand, if the Governor understood that some members of the Institute's Board of Directors were threatening the Government's compliance with the fiscal plan or with the provisions of PROMESA, he must formulate whatever charges he saw fit the members thus charged and carry out due process for their removal. However, to date, no charge has been made to charge members of the Institute's Board of Directors with actions that constitute just cause for their removal.

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 IEPR has nearly 300 statistical products in its inventory, accessible through www.estadisticas.pr. In addition, it is a guardian 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 Puerto Rico's SDC, the IEPR 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 and official statistics on Puerto Rico's decennial population and housing censuses, among others. The Puerto Rico SDC portal can be accessed at: 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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