A Cuban doctor living on the island published a video on Facebook that starkly summarizes the collapse of purchasing power in Cuba: with 100 dollars —about 65,000 pesos at the informal exchange rate— she went to the market to stock her fridge and spent 36,000 pesos on basic foods that, as she herself acknowledged, will not last her the entire month.
"These are 100 dollars in Cuba today, do they suffice to fill a refrigerator or do they get smoked away in a single purchase?" asked the professional, identified on social media as JAViart de CUBA, before showing her real-time journey through the informal market.
The doctor left from a nearly empty fridge —containing only fish, water, and some vegetables— and detailed each purchase: two cartons of eggs for 2,500 pesos each (totaling 5,000 pesos), four pounds of cheese at 550 pesos per pound (2,200 pesos), an 11-pound package of chicken for 6,800 pesos, four pounds of pork loin for 7,000 pesos, and seven pounds of boneless pork for 10,800 pesos, plus tubers, seasonings, and vegetables.
"In total, I am spending 36,000 pesos, which is approximately 55 dollars, and I am sure this won’t last me the whole month," she concluded.
The testimony illustrates a reality that worsens month by month. The dollar in the Cuban informal market closed this Thursday at around 673 pesos, compared to 435 pesos in December 2025, representing a depreciation of the Cuban peso of approximately 55% in eight months.
That free fall of the national currency is decimating state salaries. The regime set the minimum wage at 3,210 pesos per month since July 2026, a figure that, at the informal exchange rate, amounts to less than five dollars. The official average salary of 6,930 pesos barely exceeds ten dollars.
Independent economists estimate that covering the basic needs of a person requires about 96,060 pesos per month —approximately 14 times the official average salary— of which more than 70,000 would be allocated solely to food.
The official year-on-year inflation reached 18.27% in June 2026 according to the ONEI, but independent estimates place it close to 70% annually when the informal market is taken into account, where most of the population sources their supplies.
The regime has taken measures that further pressure prices upward. In July, it eliminated the cap on the retail price of rice that had been in place since March 2025, and previously it had removed caps on imported basic goods through Resolution 150/2026.
Videos of Cubans documenting their purchases have multiplied on social media as a way to testify to the decline. A previous clip showed that with the minimum monthly salary of 3,210 pesos it was only possible to buy approximately five packages of rice in the informal market.
The journalist Yoani Sánchez described in July that "every visit to the market" has become an exercise in calculation to figure out what can be bought with current prices, a phrase that encapsulates the daily anguish of millions of Cubans caught between miserable wages and an inflation that even the government cannot hide.
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