Guaranteeing breakfast and a snack for a child in Cuba for a month could exceed 10,000 pesos, according to a personal calculation that attempts to quantify the impact of food prices on families ahead of the upcoming school year.
José E. González Marín published this Monday on Facebook his own analysis, prepared based on prices he used as a reference to cover 30 breakfasts and 30 snacks.
«Today I wanted to do the math. And the result hurts even more when viewed without makeup», wrote González before detailing the foods he included in his calculation.
The presented list includes a soft bread for 120 pesos, seven eggs for 1,120, five liters of milk for 1,000, one pound of sugar for 470, four pounds of plantains for 320, ten sausages for 1,200, ten croquettes for 200, flour for 460, two instant drinks for 90, and one liter of oil for 3,500 pesos.
González Marín set the total of his calculation at 10,160 pesos and explained that with that amount he was not proposing a lavish diet.
"There is no cheese, butter, yogurt, cereal, ham, meat, or a different fruit each day. We are talking about 60 meal instances: 30 breakfasts and 30 snacks," he pointed out.
However, the sum of the prices listed in the analysis amounts to 8,480 pesos, while González places the total at 10,160. The difference of 1,680 pesos could be attributed to the price variation margin of food depending on the place of purchase, although the author does not specify this adjustment in his publication.
Starting from the 10,160 pesos he set as a total, González compared his estimate with the state average salary for 2025, officially placed at 6,930 pesos per month.
According to their calculation, providing only those breakfasts and snacks would amount to 146.6% of that salary and would leave a deficit of 3,230 pesos.
"A worker earning exactly the average salary would need to give up their entire salary and would still be short by 3,230 pesos to cover just the breakfast and snack for a child for a month," he wrote.
The author emphasized that this amount does not include lunch, food, transportation, electricity, medications, shoes, clothing, notebooks, or backpacks, along with other expenses that also burden families with school-aged children.
The return of the school year thus brings food back to the forefront of many families' concerns. As González Marín summarized: "Because buying a backpack, shoes, or notebooks is only part of the problem. You also need to be able to fill that backpack with something as simple as a snack."
The publication generated reactions from people who even considered the estimate to be insufficient.
"You really underestimated it, seven eggs—what is that for, seven lunches? So add at least 30 eggs, one a day, which is what the poor eat in the world," commented one person.
"Very true, but no one sees that sacrifice; only we mothers who must survive every day know it," another one pointed out.
There were also those who linked the issue of food with the other expenses related to back-to-school preparations.
A woman raised awareness about the differences between children who can wear new backpacks and shoes and those whose families must reuse last year's items, while another comment summed it up: "Cuba hurts".
Concerns about school snacks had already surfaced in other testimonies, just as the start of the upcoming school year is almost around the corner.
This Saturday, for example, a Cuban mother questioned what children could take as a snack to school with prices reaching up to 4,000 pesos for oil and 1,200 for sausages.
Other Cubans have conducted similar exercises to assess the gap between wages and prices.
In April, activist Yamilka Lafita estimated that the cost of various products for a basic breakfast was 7,250 pesos, a figure that could be significantly higher today, considering that in just a few months, many of those food items have seen sharp price increases.
A broader analysis published by economist Javier Pérez Capdevila estimated in June that a person needs around 96,060 pesos monthly to cover basic needs in Cuba.
Of that amount, approximately 70,070 pesos would be allocated to food according to their analysis.
These analyses take on an even more concerning dimension when compared to the incomes of Cuban workers.
In June, it was revealed that the average monthly salary in Cuba had reached 7,074 pesos in April, according to data from the National Office of Statistics and Information (ONEI), an amount that does not even cover the estimated 10,160 pesos needed for just 30 breakfasts and 30 snacks for a child.
Meanwhile, the Government increased the minimum wage from 2,100 to 3,210 pesos, effective from July and reflected in payments made starting in August.
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