Miguel Díaz-Canel once again invoked the principle of “leaving no one behind” as the cornerstone of the Cuban regime's social policy, but he rejected the notion that vulnerability affects the majority of the population, despite numerous independent studies documenting widespread impoverishment, hunger, and the deterioration of living conditions on the Island.
During episode 36 of his podcast From the Presidency, dedicated to social inclusion, the leader acknowledged the worsening living conditions, although he asserted that the vulnerable population “is not, as some anti-Cuban pamphlets have published, the majority of the population, but it is a painfully growing segment.”
The statement contrasts with the findings of the IX Study on the State of Social Rights in Cuba, published in August by the Cuban Observatory of Human Rights (OCDH), which estimated that 94% of Cubans live in extreme poverty, compared to 89% recorded in 2025 and 61% four years ago.
The research, based on 1,318 interviews conducted in 79 municipalities across all provinces, used a reference income threshold of $1.90 per day per person and the exchange rate calculated by its authors. According to its findings, 68% of households reported monthly incomes below 20,000 Cuban pesos.
The same study revealed that eight out of ten respondents had stopped having breakfast, lunch, or dinner due to lack of money or food, a figure that approached nine out of ten among those over 61 years old. Additionally, 63% admitted to facing difficulties even in acquiring essential products.
Although monetary poverty measured by the OCDH and vulnerability defined administratively by the government are not equivalent categories, the independent results challenge the notion that material deprivations can be simply described as a problem confined to certain social sectors.
Hunger is not a minor issue either
The conclusions of the OCDH align with other research on food insecurity.
The survey There is Hunger in Cuba 2025, conducted by Food Monitor Program and Cuido60 and presented in May 2026, found that 33.9% of participants reported that at least one member of their household had gone to bed hungry at least once in the 30 days prior to the survey.
The study, conducted with 2,513 valid responses collected across the 16 provinces, also indicated that 94.9% had lost some degree of access to food purchases, and that 79.4% allocated at least 80% of their income to food.
Precarity also affects children. A report by UNICEF published in 2024 placed severe food poverty among Cuban children aged 6 to 23 months at 9%, a condition characterized by the consumption of foods from a maximum of two out of the eight considered food groups.
Additionally, there are official data on mortality due to malnutrition, which increased from 43 deaths in 2022 to 75 in 2023, according to figures from the National Office of Statistics and Information reported by CiberCuba.
The vulnerable groups recognized by the Government
In the presidential program, the Minister of Labor and Social Security, Jesús Otamendiz Campos, reported that the authorities had visited over 1.3 million families and selected 883,426 individuals in the greatest vulnerability to receive priority assistance.
The selection includes criteria related to age, health, family composition, and income, including a limit of 4,000 pesos per person per month. The minister acknowledged that the number of beneficiaries is constantly changing and that there are other citizens in need who do not necessarily meet those requirements.
Otamendiz specified that currently 174,511 families receive support through social assistance, and that the budget for 2026 allocates nearly 6 billion pesos for this purpose.
However, the economist Pedro Monreal warned in August that extending assistance to the entire vulnerable population recognized by the official statistics would require approximately quadrupling the social spending of 2025, to around 24.3 billion pesos.
The government recently announced the distribution of five pounds of rice, one pound of sugar, and another pound of grains monthly for individuals classified as being in the greatest state of vulnerability. The minister himself explained that part of the food assistance relies on donations and cooperation from international organizations such as the World Food Programme.
A promise repeated for years
The formula of "leaving no one behind" is not new.
Díaz-Canel used it in January 2024 to defend the economic adjustment measures and the elimination of subsidies, and the chancellor Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla again employed it in August 2025 to present the increase in pensions as a social achievement, which was quickly undermined by inflation and the depreciation of the Cuban peso.
In his most recent remarks, the leader primarily attributed the deterioration of living conditions to the U.S. embargo and rejected the notion that the economic reforms implemented by his government are responsible for the increase in vulnerability.
However, independent reports document a crisis that affects large majorities of the population, while the authorities themselves acknowledge budgetary constraints, bureaucracy, and challenges in ensuring effective social protection.
Díaz-Canel left a particularly significant phrase at the conclusion of his program: «Social justice is not defended with speeches; it is defended with functioning institutions».
A statement that places the results of social policies, rather than the repetition of promises, as the criterion for evaluating the government's commitment to not leaving any Cuban behind.
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