What life is actually like for everyday Cubans living on the island today?

Life for everyday Cubans on the island today is defined above all by scarcity and economic hardship that has intensified dramatically since around 2019 and worsened through the pandemic years and beyond. The country faces its worst economic crisis in decades, with chronic shortages of food, medicine, fuel, and basic goods like soap and cooking oil. People spend enormous portions of their day standing in lines, sometimes for hours, hoping to buy rationed staples through the libreta system, the government ration booklet that has existed since the 1960s but now provides far less than it once did. Blackouts lasting anywhere from eight to sixteen hours a day have become routine in many provinces, making cooking, refrigeration, and daily life extraordinarily difficult. The electrical grid has deteriorated so severely that the entire national grid collapsed multiple times in 2024, leaving the whole island without power for extended periods. The dual economy creates a stark divide among Cubans themselves. Those who receive remittances from relatives abroad, primarily in the United States, Spain, or other Latin American countries, can access dollars or euros and shop at dollar stores that carry goods unavailable in peso-denominated state stores. This creates a painful social stratification where a Cuban with family abroad can live relatively comfortably while a doctor, engineer, or teacher earning a state salary of the equivalent of a few dollars per month struggles to feed their family. Many highly educated professionals have abandoned their careers to work in tourism or private businesses where they can earn convertible currency. A taxi driver or someone renting a room to tourists can earn more in a day than a surgeon earns in a month, which has hollowed out many professional sectors. The private sector has expanded somewhat since reforms allowed small and medium private businesses to operate more openly starting in 2021, and this has created a more visible entrepreneurial class running restaurants, repair shops, and small retail operations. However, these businesses face constant obstacles including difficulty obtaining supplies, unpredictable regulations, and the challenge of operating in an economy where the currency has been severely devalued. Inflation has been extraordinary, with prices rising hundreds of percent in recent years while wages have not kept pace. Many Cubans have turned to informal markets and creative workarounds just to survive, trading goods, bartering services, and relying on networks of trust and mutual aid within neighborhoods and families. Emigration has become perhaps the defining social reality of contemporary Cuba. The island has experienced one of the largest emigration waves in its history over the past several years, with hundreds of thousands of Cubans leaving through various routes including the dangerous journey through Central America and Mexico to reach the United States border. Families are being separated at a scale not seen since the early revolutionary period, and the departure of so many young and working-age people is creating demographic and economic pressures that compound the existing crisis. Those who remain often describe a sense of waiting, either for conditions to improve, for the chance to leave themselves, or simply enduring day to day. Social media and mobile internet access, which became available to ordinary Cubans only in 2018, have changed the information landscape significantly and allowed people to document and share their hardships in ways that were impossible before, though the government has responded to protests and dissent with arrests and internet shutdowns. Despite all of this, Cuban society retains strong elements of community, cultural richness, and resilience that outsiders often find striking. Music, art, baseball, and neighborhood social life remain vibrant even amid deprivation. The healthcare and education systems, though severely strained by shortages of supplies and the exodus of professionals, still provide a baseline of services that many Cubans value and that distinguish their situation from some other poor countries. Family bonds are intensely strong, partly because survival often depends on collective effort. Cubans have developed a cultural vocabulary around getting by, captured in the word resolver, meaning to resolve or figure out, which describes the daily ingenuity required to navigate shortages and bureaucratic obstacles. The political situation remains tightly controlled, with the Communist Party maintaining its monopoly on power and dissent being met with imprisonment, and most Cubans navigate this reality through a combination of private cynicism and public compliance, focusing their energy on the immediate and pressing challenge of simply getting through each day.