Report: Extreme Poverty Nears 90 Percent in Cuba

An alarming study published on Tuesday by the Cuban Observatory for Human Rights (OCDH) found that 89 percent of Cubans now live in extreme poverty conditions.

OCDH’s latest study, titled “The State of Social Rights in Cuba,” is the seventh of its kind that the Madrid-based non-government organization has published. The Observatory found that the nearly 90-percent extreme poverty rate is the consequence of the disastrous performance of the ruling communist regime in the past half-century of illegitimate rule.

The study found that seven out of ten Cubans have stopped eating breakfast, lunch, or dinner due to lack of money or due to the ongoing severe food shortages. Only 15 percent of respondents said they have been able to eat three meals a day without interruption.

The study also found that 91 percent of Cubans strongly disapprove of the Castro regime’s economic and social management of the country. Only four percent said they supported the policies of regime figurehead President Miguel Díaz-Canel.

Cuba, after more than six decades of communist mismanagement led by the ruling Castro regime, finds itself engulfed in a gravely dire and continuously worsening humanitarian crisis that has pushed the island-nation to the brink of complete ruin.

The Castro regime’s gross mismanagement of Cuba has resulted in severe shortages of food, medicine, fuel, and other basic supplies. The Castro regime has recently admitted that at least 70 percent of all basic medicine items are missing in the nation’s pharmacies.

The collapse of Cuba’s basic infrastructure has left its citizens facing near-endless blackouts that can last more than 12 hours as well as severe water shortages. Citizens of the capital city of Havana denounced in early July that their neighborhoods only receive running water for ten to 30 minutes every two months. The complex situation in Cuba has left its economy facing high inflation rates and a severe shortage of foreign currency for the cash-starved communist regime.

Cuba is also experiencing the worst migrant crisis in the country’s history, larger than the 1980 Mariel exodus and 1994’s balsero (“rafter”) crisis.

In January, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection stated that it had registered more than 153,000 irregular entries from Cuba in 2023 alone and an additional 67,000 who entered the United States through a humanitarian parole program launched by the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden in January 2023. Experts have stated that over 313,000 Cubans left in 2022 and more than 450,000 Cubans attempted to enter the United States between 2021 and 2022.

A poll released in August 2023 found that 57.5 percent of Cubans intend to leave Cuba. Experts warned in early July that Cuba lost 18 percent of its population between 2022 and 2023, bringing Cuba’s estimated remaining population from over 11 million down to 8.62 million. Last year, the Castro regime admitted that the population of Cuba is in a steep decline as a result of a growing elderly population, low birth rates, and the ongoing migrant crisis.

The Castro regime responded to the worsening economic situation by announcing a series of “war-time” economic measures in early July that Díaz-Canel said were necessary to “save the Revolution and to save socialism.” Some of the measures included establishing steep price control mechanisms on certain food items such as chicken, cooking oil, sausages, and pasta, as well as adjustments to the nation’s budget and “having more control over expenditures.”

“These data reflect the situation of poverty, food and medicine shortages and the precariousness of basic public services that burden millions of Cuban families,” OCDH stated. “The grave situation of social rights, together with repression and little confidence in the future, is at the root of the growing migratory outflow that is being experienced.”

“This issue should also provoke reflection in Latin America, where more than a few politicians and academics have uncritically accepted the Cuban government’s propaganda about its idyllic social model, some even going so far as to propose it for their own countries,” OCDH continued. “The Cuban people in the region need more people committed to accompany them in the construction of a free and just society.”

When asked what future they would want for Cuba, 53 percent of the study’s participants answered that they preferred the American model of a free society to Cuba’s. That number rose to 63 percent among those aged 18 to 30 years old. 21 percent answered that they would prefer a soft socialist model as in Spain and other parts of Europe. Only three percent said they believe that the current Cuban communist model should remain the standard.

Similarly, only three percent answered that they would prefer a model based on Russia, Cuba’s longstanding ideological ally and top financier during the times of the Soviet Union.

The Observatory asserted that, through the recent “war-time” economy declaration, the Castro regime is preparing to enter another “shock plan” that, the organization warned, will imply “more sacrifices for the population.”

“Cuba urgently needs full respect for civil and political rights, economic openness and actions to reverse the grave situation of poverty, something that is impossible under the current system,” OCDH stressed.

OCDH’s director Yaxys Cires told the Argentine outlet Infobae on Tuesday that the Castro regime not just violates the civil and political rights of Cubans, but their social rights as well. 

“That is why we always say that the Cuban regime not only represses, but also impoverishes,” he said.

“Today we are publishing this seventh report on social rights in Cuba, which — like the previous ones — is made on the basis of an investigative effort through surveys conducted among a representative sample of the Cuban population,” Cires explained. “This report allows us to alert and denounce once again the growing impoverishment of Cuban families, the shortage of food and medicine, as well as the deterioration of elementary public services.”

Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.