San José.— With their raw black humor, Cubans skip the technicalities to explain the calamity of the monthly salary of about $ 25 (591 Mexican pesos) of state employees of ubiquitous apparatus of communist economy ca Cuba. “The government pretends we don’t pay to work and we … pretend we work,” they say and smile with resignation.
Venezuelans earned about 80 cents in Bolivars in October of this year and, according to the Center for Documentation and Social Analysis of the (non-state) Venezuelan Federation of Teachers (FVM), that month they needed 39.20 minimum wages to cover the $ 31 with 36 cents in the family basic basket.
The President of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, assuring last Friday that “we are like Cuba and Venezuela in wages” and warned that “it’s a shame.” López Obrador, political ally of Havana and of Caracas, equated Mexico with Cuba, which in 1959 began to settle communist system, and Venezuela, whose ruling regime since 1999 seeks to secure a socialist one.
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Cuba and Venezuela blame the United States for their crises for the economic sanctions it has imposed since 1962 on Havana and 2017 on Caracas.
Deterioration
Venezuela, which in 2014 plunged into a socioeconomic and institutional debacle, suffers from shortages and rising prices of medicines, food and basic goods, with hyperinflation y devaluation.
Las Venezuelan universities And central Simon Bolivar (public) and Catholic Andrés Bello (private) revealed this year that 96% of Venezuelan households live in poverty and 79.3% in extreme poverty, with more than 22 million people unable to afford minimum nutrition and 7 out of 10 families harassed by food insecurity. About 27 million people still live in this country, as more than five million had to migrate abroad.
The FMV indicated that with $ 80 cents maturing in October this year, a Venezuelan could only buy a kilo of sardines, $ 61 cents.
The remaining 19 cents did not reach a kilo of garlic, one dollar and 24 cents, or one kilo of cornmeal, one dollar and two cents, added.
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He also failed to buy a kilo of rice, a chicken, a pasta, a steak, a white cheese, a sugar, an onion, a tomato, a black bean, a half of coffee, a liter of oil and a carton of chicken eggs.
The 15 foods cost $ 31 and 36 cents, in a basket that subdued $ 9 and 51 cents from September to October of that year, precisely. The figure did not include expenses for star, clothing, water, electricity or transportation.
Duality
Cuba has been experiencing a monetary and exchange rate duality since 1994, with pesos in two denominations — Cuban and convertible — that the government will eliminate on January 1, 2021: the Cuban will survive and the convertible will disappear.
In a de facto devaluation in a country with monthly salaries paid in both currencies and equivalent to $ 25 or less, with exceptions such as health professionals or politicians, the price of the American ticket on the black market rose this year from 24 to 36 or 40 Cubans and one to one and a half in convertibles.
A shortage of food and essential goods worsened in 2018 and 2019 and generated a dollarization in 2020. The Cuban government will raise the minimum wage from 400 Cuban pesos (about $ 16) from 2019 to 2,100 in 2021 (about $ 87).
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An official price list that will govern from the first of January entering showing that a small ration of food will consume more than 9% of the salary: seven kilos of fish, minced fish, rice, sugar, beef, liver, chicken, milk flour and chicken ham, 785 grams of melted cheese, pork burger and chicken sausage, a liter of oil, a liquid detergent, a deodorant and toothpaste will cost 192 pesos with 80 cents (about 8 dollars and 3 cents).
The situation anticipated an inflationary sequel … and the Cubans smiled resignedly to their black humor.