The economist Pedro Monreal published a scathing analysis on poverty and social protection in Cuba this Friday, in which he dismantles the regime's official statistics and proposes a structural redesign of the system to restore to the most vulnerable “a predictable income, an enforceable right, and the dignity of not having to depend on charity.”
The document, titled “Cuba: imprecise vulnerability, insufficient social assistance, and misery with no light at the end of the tunnel”, highlights a shocking gap among three figures that coexist without official explanation: the regime acknowledges 883,436 people in vulnerable situations; the UN assists two million in its 2026 Action Plan; and the sociologist Dra. Mayra Espina estimates that 6.45 million Cubans —66% of the population— live in economic poverty.
In light of these figures, the state budget for social assistance in 2025 covered only 303,298 actual beneficiaries.
Monreal, a prestigious economist from ECLAC (Economic Commission for Latin America), warns that the confusion is not accidental. "The government can announce that it has identified 883,426 vulnerable individuals and at the same time provide assistance only to 303,298 beneficiaries in 2025, without violating any regulations, because the first figure is not a budgetary commitment, it is a diagnosis. The second one is," he writes.
That distinction is key: being "vulnerable" in Cuba means appearing on a list for potential aid, with no guarantees. Being a "beneficiary" implies a recognized right with budget allocation.
However, to access this right, three simultaneous conditions must be met: one must be unable to work due to health issues or disability, must not have sufficient income to cover food and medicine, and must lack family members who are obligated to provide assistance. If even one of these conditions is missing, there is no right to receive support.
The result is a system that Monreal himself describes as a " residual regime, non-contributory, conditioned on the inability to work, having no supportive family, and having no income."
The analysis also reveals that real social protection in Cuba does not come from the State, but from family remittances and external humanitarian aid. The 2026 Budget allocated 6 billion pesos to social assistance, which is equivalent to just 6.6 million dollars at the informal exchange rate. Remittances, conservatively estimated at 1 billion dollars, exceed that expenditure by more than 140 times.
But that protection is deeply unequal: only 37% of Cuban households receive remittances, according to the Cuban Observatory of Human Rights. The remaining 63% are left at the mercy of inadequate state assistance.
The humanitarian aid from the UN has cumulatively benefited 1.7 million people in Cuba as of September this year, which is 5.6 times more than the state social assistance budget. The international community has committed around 250 million dollars in humanitarian aid in kind for 2026, compared to the 6.6 million from the Cuban state.
This scenario leads Monreal to a striking conclusion: "Social protection in Cuba is no longer sustained by the social assistance budget, but rather by remittances and external humanitarian aid. When a state relies on donations to feed its vulnerable population, the debate about whether it should be called a 'humanitarian crisis' becomes secondary: the problem exists, it worsens, and the label does not resolve it."
The analysis is published days after Monreal took an unusual political step by defending the democratic rule of law as a necessary condition for any real economic transformation in Cuba, within the framework of the "Cuba Transformación" project, developed alongside four other economists.
"Cuba does not need to choose between market and social protection. It needs a State that guarantees a basic level of protection as a right, financed with its own resources and not with donations, and an economy that generates the income to sustain it," concludes Monreal.
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