The content creator Sisi Aguilera showed on social media this Friday the prices of various foods and denounced that many Cubans cannot even afford to buy meat, a reality that was also reflected in the comments of hundreds of users.
In a video shared through her Facebook profile, Aguilera showed a small bag of rice costing 950 pesos (CUP), vegetables priced at 300 CUP for 1.4 pounds, and a piece of meat that exceeds 3,000 CUP.
"The meat is not affordable for Cubans," he stated, before questioning why prices continue to rise while salaries remain practically the same.
One of the cases presented is that of an 80-year-old neighbor who receives a pension of 2,000 CUP per month. According to Aguilera, with that money she can barely buy a piece of meat, which, when cut into strips, lasts her between three and four days. "How is that possible?" she asked.
The video was accompanied by a statement that is hard to dispute: "Food in Cuba is no longer within everyone's reach."
In July, the minimum wage in the Caribbean country was set at 3,210 CUP. Independent economists estimate that a person needs around 96,000 pesos per month to meet their basic needs, of which more than 70,000 would be solely for food.
This Friday, the dollar in the informal market reached 780 CUP. At that rate, the minimum wage is equivalent to just $4.11. The official year-on-year inflation reached 25.19% in August, while food prices accumulated a 36% increase; independent estimates place the real inflation rate close to 70% annually.
The comments on the video expand on the picture described by Aguilera. A Cuban woman claimed to have spent 10,000 CUP on "practically one meal" and pointed out that blackouts make it difficult to preserve food, which is why many families have to buy it daily.
The elderly are among the most affected. A 79-year-old man reported that he does not have breakfast because the bread does not arrive at the distribution point, and that at the SAF dining hall he receives "two ladles of rice without salt and without fat and bread occasionally." His pension, as he wrote, is 3,210 CUP per month.
Another person summarized the food situation with a phrase that highlights the depth of the crisis: "Eating precariously once a day in Cuba is something that not everyone can do."
The Cuban government recently inaugurated the so-called Neighborhood Markets, with the promise of reducing the prices of basic products by between 15% and 30%.
However, the comments gathered regarding these initiatives raise questions about their prices, which some consumers consider to be the same or even higher than those of other establishments.
In Havana, a small family needs about 205,000 CUP monthly to cover their basic expenses, estimated in September by engineer and businesswoman Yulieta Hernández, a resident of Havana. This amount is equivalent to nearly 64 minimum wages, a disparity that helps to illustrate the gap between available income and the cost of living.
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