People struggle to survive on pocket-size government ration books as products dwindle
In a quiet bodega in central Havana, clerk José Luis Amate López counts days without customers. The shelves that once brimmed with staples are bare, and the roughly 5,000 households assigned to his state-run store now find little more than dust where subsidized food should be.
The ration book—la libreta—that once stretched an entire month is thinning fast. With the economy in freefall, prices soaring, and more basic goods sold in U.S. dollars, many Cubans earning state wages can no longer afford alternatives. “No Cuban can truly survive on the products from the ration book anymore,” Amate López said, summing up a common refrain across the island.
Living on air
Created in the early 1960s, la libreta guaranteed deeply subsidized essentials—milk, fish, rice, even cigarettes—reliably stocked at the start of each month. Its coverage shrank during the 1990s “Special Period,” when the collapse of Soviet aid brought acute shortages; one medical study later documented widespread weight loss. Yet many who remember those years now say the present feels harsher.
Amate López recalls bodegas so full “you could barely walk.” Today his shop is an echoing room with faded posters listing items that no longer come: yogurt, pasta, bars of soap. Two once-busy freezers that held meat and chicken now chill only a water bottle. In April, he says, the store could offer just rice, sugar, and split chickpeas.
Even traditional milestones feel diminished. Fifteenth birthdays—once celebrated with cake and beer—now come with a ration of 3 kilograms of ground beef. The government recently marked 65th birthdays with sardines, a bar of soap, and a roll of toilet paper, though even those aren’t always available, he said.
Havana resident Ana Enamorado, 68, left her bodega in April with split chickpeas and a single kilogram of sugar. Between a salary and pension totaling about 8,000 pesos a month—roughly $16 at common street rates—she turns to small private shops, known as mipymes, where prices soar. A 30-egg carton can run about 3,000 pesos (around $125 at the quoted rates), two pounds of meat hash close to 900 pesos, and a pound of cornmeal around 200. Once, her table held pork, lamb, fricassee, fried plantains, red beans, and rice. Now she often rotates rice, a bit of seasoned ground meat, and cornmeal—or skips meals. “We’re practically living off air,” she said.
From universal subsidies to targeted aid?
Cuba imports up to 80 percent of what it eats, including goods destined for ration stores—imports that have become erratic as public finances strain. Analysts note that the 2021 currency unification was mishandled, inflation roared, and the state has spent far more than it takes in. Stabilizing the economy, they argue, requires halting excessive money issuance and balancing the budget without gutting social programs—no easy task when health, education, social welfare, and food imports dominate spending.
Officials have floated a shift from subsidizing goods for everyone to subsidizing people in need, potentially freeing funds for fuel, medicines, and other priorities. But the island’s multiple crises—rolling blackouts, acute fuel shortages, and tightened external pressure on energy supplies—make any transition perilous. Meanwhile, many families still rely on la libreta to cover at least a fraction of their monthly needs. The ration book has even become comic fodder: a popular character, Pánfilo, recently joked it belongs in a cemetery “ready to be buried”—a punchline that lands because it feels so close to daily life.
Counting pesos, skipping meals
On a recent afternoon, 56-year-old Lázaro Cuesta queued for two small bread rolls, the daily allotment for him and his wife. The rolls, he said, used to weigh about 80 grams and cost 5 centavos; now they’re roughly half the size and cost 75, and the quality has slipped. Cuesta works in food prep and earns about 6,000 pesos a month. His wife, a retired nurse, receives 4,800 pesos in pension. Remittances—about $200 a month from relatives abroad—stretch their diet to include avocados, eggs, and beans. Without that support, he said darkly, tracing a line across his neck, he doesn’t know how they would cope.
An estimated majority of Cuban households receive some remittance support, but many do not. Among them is 54-year-old Havana resident Rosa Rodríguez. “Everything is scarce—everything—even that wretched bread,” she said. Her monthly pay of about 4,000 pesos (roughly $8 at the quoted rates) is decent by local standards, yet “no matter how hard you work, it’s simply not enough.” In April, the only item she received at her bodega was a donated 1.8 kilograms of rice. She rations every purchase: if she buys beans, she can’t afford sugar; if she buys eggs, something else has to go. “If I retire,” she added grimly, “I won’t make it.”
Back at the near-empty bodega, the month’s ledger tells a story of dwindling rations and anxious visits. Customers come, ask what’s arrived, and shrug at the answer: rice, sugar, maybe chickpeas—if they’re lucky. Many leave to face the unforgiving arithmetic that now defines daily life: fewer pesos that buy less food, longer lines for smaller portions, and a ration book that no longer guarantees much beyond uncertainty.
