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A report by Diario de Cuba gathered heartbreaking testimonies from Cuban retirees who described a shared reality: their pension lasts no more than a week. "That money, when it comes into my hands, in five, six, seven, eight days, is gone," recounts one of the interviewees.
The scene unfolds again on the streets of the island. Elderly individuals wander, begging for change or collecting recyclable materials to survive. “I see them out there on the street, wandering, begging, doing things that you can only imagine they have to do, because if not, they won't get by,” described another testimony from the report.
The gap between what people earn and the cost of living is staggering. A croquette costs 150 pesos, a loaf of bread 140 pesos, and going out with 2,000 pesos doesn't get you anywhere. "You go out with two thousand pesos now and come back with nothing," says one of the retirees. "Who can live on that? Listen, it's impossible."
The Cuban regime approved Resolution 14/2025 in August 2025, which raised the minimum pension to 4,000 pesos for those who were receiving less than that amount, benefiting around 430,000 pensioners. However, the increase was quickly eroded by inflation and the depreciation of the peso.
In September 2025, those 4,000 pesos were worth less than 10 dollars at the unofficial exchange rate, and by the end of that year, they had fallen to about seven dollars, a loss of nearly 30% of purchasing power in just four months.
Official food inflation reached 16.65% year-on-year in March 2026, while independent economists estimate that the real inflation rate was around 70% in 2025.
The basic basket in Havana is estimated at 12,000 pesos per person per month, three times the adjusted minimum pension. A survey conducted in 2025 by the Independent Trade Union Association of Cuba with 506 retirees across five provinces revealed that 99% say their pension does not cover basic needs for food, housing, and medicine.
90.7% of retired respondents continue to work after retirement, mostly in the informal economy, and 97.8% seek additional income to survive. Previously, 39% of Cuban retirees survived on minimal pensions of 1,528 pesos per month, an amount that was already inadequate at that time.
The collapse of the healthcare system exacerbates the situation even further. A retiree mentioned in the report that the medication Prevenor, which used to cost six pesos at the pharmacy, is now practically impossible to find and its price has skyrocketed. Inflation and the soaring dollar are sinking pensions with each passing month.
Retirees themselves are asking the State for attention that never arrives. "With elderly people, there should be a somewhat more flexible approach. More flexible because we can hardly afford to buy anything," said one of the interviewed individuals. Another added, "I live right here, and no one ever comes to check on how I live."
The situation is not new. In March 2024, an elderly man fainted while waiting in line to collect his pension in Santiago de Cuba, a victim of hypoglycemia under the sun, in an image that captured the extreme vulnerability faced by seniors on the island.
We lack attention and care, both things, concluded one of the retirees interviewed by Diario de Cuba, in a phrase that encapsulates the systematic neglect to which the regime subjects those who dedicated their entire lives to working on the island.
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