The Cuban government announced a new monthly food distribution for 883,000 people deemed "in a greater state of vulnerability," providing a quota of five pounds of rice, one pound of sugar, and one pound of grains.
The Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz made the announcement during the official podcast Desde la Presidencia released on Friday. The selection of beneficiaries was the result of "meticulous work at the community level, door to door," assured the head of Government, in a clip of the intervention shared on his X account by journalist Magdiel Jorge Castro.
According to Marrero, experts and academics designed eight profiles to identify individuals in the highest vulnerability situations. The official acknowledged that the previous system distributed resources "equally among everyone, to those in need and to those who were not."
The assistance will continue monthly until January, as announced by the leader. Those who were not included in the list and believe they meet the criteria can request their inclusion through the digital platform "Soberanía". At the time of the announcement, there had been 100 requests registered.
The scale of the program is also reflected in the increase in the official number of individuals identified as poor or vulnerable.
In July 2025, Marrero reported to parliament that the number was 310,000; a year later, the figure rose to 876,522.
The announcement is part of the new focused social protection model approved as part of the package of 176 Economic and Social Transformations that the National Assembly approved in June, which replaced the universal subsidy scheme with assistance aimed at those classified monthly as vulnerable by the popular councils.
The promise, however, clashes with a devastating reality. The Cuban Observatory of Human Rights reports that 94% of Cubans are living in extreme poverty, according to the IX Report on the State of Social Rights, published in August and based on 1,318 interviews across 79 municipalities.
The same study estimated that eight out of ten Cubans had skipped breakfast, lunch, or dinner at least once in the previous six months due to a lack of money or food.
The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (Cepal) projects a decline of 10.3% in Cuba's GDP in 2026, the worst in Latin America, while the year-on-year inflation reached 25.19% in August, with food prices rising by 36.01%.
The current minimum wage is 3,210 Cuban pesos per month, equivalent to just over four dollars at the informal exchange rate.
In Santiago de Cuba, the specialist Diamaris Perdomo Hechavarría recently warned that the classification of vulnerability is not permanent and is reviewed every month, adding that "not everyone is vulnerable."
A grandfather may have been excluded from the sale of cooking oil intended for vulnerable individuals because his ration book lists a grandson with relatives abroad, according to a testimony shared this Saturday by the journalist José L. Tan Estrada on his Facebook profile.
In Camagüey, it was reported that the Montecarlo supermarket excluded from subsidized oil individuals with relatives abroad registered in their ration book, a criterion that is not mentioned in any official regulations.
In Holguín, the authorities acknowledged that one in every 10 residents -90,148 people- is in a vulnerable situation.
The historian Ivette García González summed it up succinctly in September: "The vulnerable in Cuba are no longer segments, they are not a minority. It is the majority of the people, the average citizen."
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