A Cuban doctor documented on TikTok how she spent her entire monthly salary in just one day on everyday activities, including a basic grocery purchase and a photo session to celebrate her baby's four months.
The video published last Thursday by user @javiart08, known as JAViart, details each daily expense: two photos of the baby for 1,900 Cuban pesos (CUP), bread for breakfasts and snacks, cheese for the week, four ripe plantains, a carton of eggs, and a bottle of natural yogurt. The total amounted to 8,760 CUP, equivalent to approximately 17 dollars at the informal exchange rate.
"I spent my entire salary in one day and didn't even realize it," says the doctor at the beginning of the video, before breaking down each purchase with the ease of someone describing something that no longer surprises her.
What does hold her back, however, is the price of the photos: 1,900 CUP for two images of the baby, an amount that, according to her, is equivalent to her grandmother's pension.
"Not everyone earns that in a month, and this wasn't a big purchase; it was an ordinary purchase," he states in the video, emphasizing that what is documented is not an extraordinary expense but the reality of any given day in Cuba.
The base salary of a newly graduated doctor in Cuba is just 5,060 CUP per month, about 10 dollars at the informal exchange rate. With a specialty and on-call duties, it can reach 6,562 CUP, and with more than twenty years of experience, it can go up to 8,000 CUP, around 16 dollars. The minimum retirement pension, following the partial increase approved in September 2025, is set at 4,000 CUP, less than eight dollars per month.
The basic basket for two people in Havana exceeds 41,000 CUP per month according to the Food Monitor Program, which means that the salary of a doctor covers less than 20% of what is needed to feed a family.
This is not the first time that @javiart08 has exposed the gap between salaries and prices in Cuba. In April, he documented that 100 dollars a month is not enough to survive, with an initial purchase of 39,300 CUP that left just 55 CUP remaining. Also that month, he described the bureaucratic obstacles of MINSAP that keep him "regulated" and prevent him from emigrating despite three years of waiting.
According to independent estimates, the accumulated inflation in Cuba between 2024 and 2026 exceeds 200% and the Cuban peso has devalued by 48% against the dollar in one year, rising from 345 CUP per dollar in March 2025 to over 510 CUP currently. Cuban doctors surviving on 16 dollars a month have become the focus of a growing trend on TikTok where healthcare professionals document the impossibility of living on a salary on the island.
The doctor closed her video with a direct message: "Save this video and send it to anyone who says that in Cuba you can live on a single salary."
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