A Cuban doctor with two specialties, a master's degree, and over 35 years of professional experience summarized this Sunday, in a Facebook post, the paradox that the new 10,000 and 20,000 Cuban peso bills present: her entire monthly salary, including incentives, does not even equal the value of one of those bills.
Alina Arcos Fdez-Britto, health professional, wrote: «With the recent issuance of 10,000 and 20,000 Cuban peso bills, I find myself faced with the evidence that my salary as a health professional, including 'salary incentives', could be summed up in a single bill. And I would still have to give change... which wouldn't be little.»
The doctor specified that her monthly income is around 13,125 Cuban pesos (CUP), which, at the current informal exchange rate this Sunday, amounts to less than 19 dollars a month.
That amount represents less than one-fifth of the extreme poverty threshold set by the United Nations: 90 dollars a month, or three dollars a day, according to the updated index for 2025.
The contrast becomes even more pronounced when compared to the estimated minimum spending required to cover basic needs in Cuba. Economist Javier Pérez Capdevila calculated that this threshold is 96,060 CUP monthly, a figure that exceeds Dr. Arcos's salary by more than seven times.
The Central Bank of Cuba introduced the 10,000 and 20,000 CUP banknotes on September 16, the highest denominations ever issued in the country’s history. The president of that institution, Juana Lilia Delgado Portal, justified the measure due to the current conditions of prices and monetary circulation.
It is the second high denomination issuance cycle in 2026: by April, 2,000 and 5,000 CUP bills had already entered circulation.
The economist Pedro Monreal warned that the new banknotes reflect a system where work no longer counts: “When the highest denomination bill far exceeds the monthly salary, it often indicates chronic inflation, monetary duality, or a dollarized circuit, rather than a payment system anchored in labor.” The national minimum wage is set at 3,210 CUP, and the average state salary barely exceeds 7,000 CUP, meaning that a 20,000 CUP bill is equivalent to almost three average salaries.
Dr. Arcos emphasized that doctors are far from being the worst-paid workers and directed her remarks towards those in even more precarious situations: "What can we say then about retirees, who dedicated their entire lives and dreams for the 'bright future' promised by the Revolution?" Her own mother, a pensioner, receives just over four dollars a month, which is even below the official minimum pension of 4,000 CUP.
The doctor described the situation as "modern slavery" and highlighted the central contradiction of the Cuban economic model: "The Cuban state maintains payments to its workers in national currency. A currency that is openly and shamelessly devalued and has extremely limited purchasing power," while the dollarization progresses de facto as a state policy.
The publication also challenged the argument that the embargo is the cause of Cuba's ills and rejected the notion that the situation could be alleviated with multidimensional assessments: the majority of Cubans lack stable electricity, regular drinking water, safe housing, and food security. "Not even health and education are guaranteed anymore," they wrote, "because although both are public, for a long time—quite a long time—they have practically ceased to be free. And I can attest that many times, even when paying for them, they are of poor quality."
The Cuban Observatory of Human Rights estimated in 2026 that 94% of the Cuban population lives in extreme poverty due to income, a figure that makes Dr. Arcos's case a reflection of a reality that extends across almost the entire island.
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