A Cuban identified as Noemi Delgado Zamora posted a video on Facebook this Tuesday in which she shows what she paid for a basic purchase of food and household items: 11,700 Cuban pesos for just six products.
The list detailed in the video includes a bottle of oil (3,650 pesos), 30 eggs (3,800 pesos), one and a half pounds of pork (3,300 pesos), a bottle of mojito (1,100 pesos), a package of cookies (650 pesos), and a cleaning rag (2,000 pesos).
"The dollar is going down, but prices are going up. I ended up paying 11,700 pesos for this little purchase," Noemi said at the end of the video.
This "little purchase" exceeds the average state monthly salary, which according to the National Office of Statistics and Information (ONEI) was 7,354 pesos in August 2026. The minimum wage, effective since July 2026, is 3,210 pesos, meaning that Noemi's purchase represents almost four minimum wages.
Several Cubans agreed on the rise in prices. "And be grateful you can do it; what will we say those of us who earn 3,000?" wrote one user. Another noted, "My pension barely covers the basics; I bought quite a bit." A third reminded that those purchases lacked the most fundamental products in the Cuban diet: "And we still missed rice, root vegetables, beans, coffee, sugar, and salt; so how much more would it be?"
"Indeed, we have made a tremendous change in our lives; before, eating was a necessity, now it is a luxury," lamented a Cuban.
Economist Javier Pérez Capdevila calculated that a person needs at least 96,060 pesos per month to cover their basic needs, a figure that amounts to about 13 times the average state salary.
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