Who Pays for the Collapse
José Luis Amate López said he had not had a customer in almost two weeks at the bodega where he works in central Havana, where the shelves that were once laden with goods during his childhood sat nearly empty in late April and had barely anything to offer the 5,000 clients who depend on the state-run store for subsidized food. Government ration books that once provided for a healthy diet and kept families fully fed for a month are now shrinking as the economy collapses and prices soar, leaving a growing number of Cubans unable to afford alternatives to state-run stores and struggling to subsist on meager salaries in a socialist country of nearly 10 million where basic goods increasingly are sold in U.S. dollars.
Amate López said, “No Cuban can truly survive on the products from the ration book anymore.”
The ration book, known as “la libreta,” was established by revolutionary leader Fidel Castro in the early 1960s. It offered heavily subsidized goods ranging from milk to fish and even cigarettes, and Cubans knew their assigned bodega would be stocked with everything they needed by the first of the month. Now the apparatus that once promised predictable survival is shrinking under the pressure of scarcity, inflation and state failure.
What the State Still Calls Provision
Amate López recalled that his assigned bodega was so full decades ago “you could barely walk.” It is now an empty room with dusty old posters detailing the prices and amounts of nearly two dozen goods no longer available, including yogurt, pasta and bars of soap. Two industrial freezers once packed with meat and chicken now serve only to keep Amate López’s water bottle cold. In April, the only items he had available to sell were rice, sugar and split chickpeas.
Cuban teens turning 15, a landmark birthday in Latin America, used to receive cake and several cases of beer. Now they only get 3 kilograms (6.6 pounds) of ground beef. The government recently opted to celebrate those turning 65 by awarding them sardines, a bar of soap and a package of toilet paper. But Amate López said he does not have those items.
Havana resident Ana Enamorado, 68, said she was only able to buy split chickpeas and 2 pounds (1 kilogram) of sugar at her assigned bodega in April. She said she struggles to buy the remaining basic goods at small, privately owned stores known as “mipymes” with her salary and pension totaling some 8,000 Cuban pesos ($16) a month. A carton of 30 eggs costs roughly 3,000 pesos ($125), 2 pounds of meat hash are nearly 900 pesos ($37) and 1 pound of cornmeal is roughly 200 pesos ($8).
Enamorado said, “There’s hardly anything in the ration book. We’re practically living off air.” She said her lunches and dinners are a rotation of rice, seasoned ground meat and cornmeal, or sometimes nothing at all, and recalled once being able to eat pork, lamb, fricassee, fried plantain slices and red beans and rice. “Now we have to cut back, have one meal a day and live on memories,” Enamorado said.
Scarcity as a Daily Discipline
Cuba imports up to 80% of the food it consumes, including goods offered at state stores that are increasingly unavailable given a lack of government resources. William LeoGrande, a professor at American University who has tracked Cuba for years, said the government does not have the money to do it anymore and that “Things come in an ad hoc way.” LeoGrande said the government “bungled” the 2021 merging of two Cuban currencies and the resulting inflation has persisted because the state spends far more money than it takes in.
He said the government has to stop printing money and balance its budget without drastically cutting social services, a challenge since the bulk of state funds is spent on health, education, social welfare and food imports. LeoGrande said, “Any major cuts in state spending are going to have a profound social impact, which is why they haven’t done it,” and added that the government’s investment in tourism is “way higher” than the demand for tourism, which has plummeted.
In recent years, Cuba’s government has talked about subsidizing people in need instead of goods, which LeoGrande said would free up money to import fuel, medicine and other items. But many Cubans still depend on their ration books while the island’s crises deepen as severe power outages, petroleum shortages and a U.S. energy blockade persist.
Cuban comedians have spoofed the ration book, creating a character named “Pánfilo” who sings a rhyming chorus in a recent video posted online: “Place the notebook in a cemetery, because it’s ready to be buried.”
Remittances, Mipymes and the New Divide
On a recent sunny afternoon, Lázaro Cuesta, 56, stood in line to receive a daily allowance of two small bread rolls for him and his wife. He said, “Before it was 80 grams and cost 5 (Cuban) cents. Now it’s 40 grams and costs 75 cents,” and added, “And the quality is worse.” Cuesta works in food preparation and earns 6,000 Cuban pesos ($250) a month. His wife, a retired nurse, receives 4,800 pesos in monthly pension. They also receive $200 a month from her brother and daughter who live abroad.
Cuesta said the remittances allow them to eat avocados, eggs and red beans and rice, and said, “If not for the remittances,” while grabbing his neck with his right hand, “hang yourself.” Roughly 60% of Cubans on the island receive remittances, but Rosa Rodríguez, 54, of Havana is not one of them.
Rodríguez said, “Everything is scarce here — everything — even that wretched bread they give us.” She earns 4,000 Cuban pesos ($8) a month, which she said isn’t a bad salary for Cuba, but “no matter how hard you work, it’s simply not enough.” Rodríguez said the only product she obtained at her assigned bodega in April was a donation of 4 pounds (1.8 kilograms) of rice, while she struggles to buy other basic goods. She said, “If you buy beans, then you can’t buy sugar,” noting that most of her salary is spent on a large carton of eggs. Rodríguez said, “If I retire, I die.”