Madrid/The lack of electricity exceeds, for the first time, to the lack of food as the main concern of Cubans. This is reflected in the most recent study on the state of social rights on the island of the Cuban Observatory of Human Rights (OCDH), published on Tuesday, which returns to register the alarming figure of extreme poverty last year: 89% of households are plunged into it.
The blackouts, which did not even appear named in the OCDH report of 2023They have taken a leap no less than 17 points, to 72%, since last year, when they appeared, with 55%, below the food crisis (72%in 2024). It is not surprising, taking into account the comatose state of the National Energy Systemwhich in the last year has suffered several total collapses and whose capacity barely reaches 50% of what the population needs.
Food shortage this year, anyway, continues to appear very high, secondly, very close, with 71%. At the other end of the list, to the tail of the concerns and “despite the official propaganda”, as highlighted by the report, are the US embargo (3%) and the MSMEs (2%).
The preferred fate remains the United States, with 30%, although the percentage of those who would go to “anywhere where you can leave” has increased “
An additional element that has taken a leap in this report, the eighth of its kind that annually publishes the organization, based in Madrid, is the despair installed in the Cuban population, which is reflected in the intentions of emigrating. Thus, 78% of those consulted “want to leave or know someone who wants to leave the country.” Growth in three years has been 60 points: in the 2022 reportin full Souvenir of the Exodus By the “Route of the volcanoes” after the repression unleashed after the protests of July 11, 2021, it was only 18%.
The preferred fate remains the United States, with 30%, although the percentage of those who would go to “anywhere where you can leave”, 34%, has increased. China and Russia, collect the report, attract only 2% of those who want to emigrate.
The intention of leaving the country is “significantly greater among the youngest population and is decreasing with age,” the observatory collects (76% among those who are 18 to 30 years old and 61% among those of 31 to 45 years). It is also the youngest ones that value the Government management worse: only 3.29% of them value it positively.
In general, the disapproval of the regime reaches a record figure, 92%, one more point than in 2024.
Although unemployment remains in the numbers of last year – 12% of respondents say they have no job -, the percentage of the population that has been spending more than a year has increased: 69% from 2024 to 72% of 2025. A new fact, which did not appear in the reports so far, is worrying: 32% of those who recognize themselves as unemployed are for more than three years.
Misery is also exposed in the fact that 14% of those over 70 years of age continue to work after retirement, and the lack of future, in which 81% of unemployed young people between 18 and 30 years have been out of work for more than a year.
The figures, otherwise, affect a crisis that is accentuated every day. Eight out of ten families do not reach the necessary minimum, that is, the equivalent of $ 171 per month. Seven out of 10 Cubans “have stopped breakfast, lunch or eat, due to the lack of money or food shortage,” which rises to 8 out of 10 in the strip of those who are over 61 years old.
The elderly, the Population group that grows the most on the islandon the other hand, it is still the most vulnerable. 82% of the interviewees – a total of 1,344 randomly, between June 8 and July 11 – consider that the elderly are the ones that most affect the current problems.
Although households that receive remittances have increased by 2025 compared to the previous year – from 30% to 37% – inflation, weight devaluation and the shortage of products in general makes the difference with those who do not receive them are not so large.
The Observatory, on the other hand, summarizes in a paragraph what has been the effect of the progressive elimination of subsidies by the State: “the products and services subsidized, due to their short duration, their quantity, their intermittency or shortage, they have less and less impact on many homes. To this is added the serious crisis of public services and the lack of transparency over the real cost of them.”
