That is, if the official dollar exchange rate is taken into account. “If used [la] informal rate, the disaster would be much more serious.
MIAMI, United States. – Economist Pedro Monreal stated that, if the World Bank’s international extreme poverty line ($2.15 per day) is applied to Cuba, 100% of the country’s state workers would fall into the category of extreme poverty. At the same time, he pointed out that the Cuban State did not report poverty data to the most recent report of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), titled Social Panorama of Latin America and the Caribbean 2025.
In his calculation, the economist used the average state salary of 6,685 Cuban pesos (CUP) and the official exchange rate of 1 USD = 120 CUP maintained by the Government.
Based on these figures, the 6,685 CUP are equivalent to about 55 dollars a month if divided by 120, that is, around 1.8 dollars a day, below the line of 2.15 dollars a day that the World Bank define as extreme poverty threshold (in 2017 purchasing power parity prices).
In the same Facebook post, the economist specifies that “’extreme poverty’ (also known as ‘indigence’) is the situation in which there is not enough income to cover at least basic food needs.”
Furthermore, he assures that, “if it is used [la] informal rate, the disaster would be much more serious.”
The World Bank’s $2.15 line
The World Bank updated in 2022 the international extreme poverty line at $2.15 per day per person, in 2017 purchasing power parity (PPP) terms. This line replaces the previous one of $1.90 and is used as a reference to measure and compare extreme poverty around the world.
According to the institution itself, the line of 2.15 dollars corresponds to the median of the national poverty lines of the lowest-income countries and is the indicator that supports goal 1.1 of the Sustainable Development Goalsreferring to the eradication of extreme poverty.
He ECLAC report Social Panorama of Latin America and the Caribbean 2025: how to get out of the trap of high inequality, low social mobility and weak social cohesion cited by Monreal, was made public on November 26. This is the organization’s annual study that analyzes the evolution of poverty, inequality, employment and other social indicators in the region and which serves as a technical framework for public policy debates in Latin America and the Caribbean.
From this report and the previous ones, it is clear that the regional organization has not worked with its own estimates of monetary poverty for the Island at least since 2020.
However, Monreal’s publication and the documents of the ECLAC and the World Bank draw a picture in which Cuban state workers are located below the international poverty line, while the country remains outside of comparable poverty statistics in the region.
The combination of eroded real wages and lack of data reported to a regional organization reinforces the idea of growing opacity about the magnitude of impoverishment in Cuba, precisely at a time when ECLAC insists that the eradication of extreme poverty and the reduction of inequality are indispensable conditions for inclusive social development in Latin America and the Caribbean.
