By Pastor Herrera Macurán
Horizonte Cubano News
August 27, 2026 — Morning Edition
A country has a serious problem when working is no longer enough to live.
This may be one of the most important economic realities facing Cuba today.
A worker can report to work every morning, fulfill his responsibilities, accumulate years of experience and still discover that his salary cannot reliably cover the basic necessities of everyday life.
When that happens, the problem is larger than inflation.
It becomes a crisis in the value of work itself.
For any economic system to maintain credibility, there must be a basic relationship between work, productivity and the ability to live with dignity.
In Cuba, that relationship has deteriorated.
And rebuilding it should become a national priority.
What Is a Salary Supposed to Do?
A salary is more than money deposited or handed to a worker.
It represents an agreement between society and labor.
You work.
You contribute.
And in exchange, your income should allow you to participate meaningfully in the economy.
That does not mean every job guarantees wealth.
It means employment should matter.
A worker should reasonably expect that wages contribute substantially toward food, housing, transportation, clothing, utilities and other ordinary necessities.
When wages cease performing that function, people adapt.
They search for informal income.
They depend on relatives abroad.
They leave professional careers for jobs connected to tourism or private business.
They accumulate multiple sources of income.
Or they leave the country.
Those decisions are not simply personal choices.
They are economic signals.
A Doctor Should Not Need Remittances to Survive
Cuba has historically taken pride in its educated population.
Doctors.
Engineers.
Teachers.
Scientists.
Technicians.
Skilled workers.
That human capital is one of the country’s greatest assets.
But education loses part of its economic value when professional qualifications do not translate into a reasonable standard of living.
A society creates a dangerous incentive when years of education and professional responsibility can produce less purchasing power than access to foreign currency, tips or remittances.
The question is not whether one occupation deserves dignity more than another.
Every honest job deserves respect.
The problem arises when the economic system stops rewarding skill, responsibility, experience and productivity in a meaningful way.
Eventually, people respond rationally.
They go where opportunity exists.
The Remittance Divide
Money sent from abroad has helped countless Cuban families survive difficult periods.
Those families should not be criticized for helping one another.
But remittances also reveal an uncomfortable economic reality.
Two Cuban households can have similar employment situations and completely different standards of living because one receives money from relatives abroad and the other does not.
That creates an economy in which family geography can matter almost as much as employment.
A worker with relatives in the United States or Europe may have access to resources unavailable to another worker performing the same job.
This is not the fault of emigrants.
It is evidence that domestic wages are not performing their economic function.
The long-term answer cannot be preventing families from sending money.
It must be creating an economy in which Cubans can earn adequate income inside Cuba.
Inflation Destroys Confidence
Raising salaries means little if prices rise faster.
Workers understand this immediately.
A government may announce higher wages, but families judge economic policy at markets, pharmacies, transportation stops and utility bills.
What can today’s salary actually purchase?
That is the measurement that matters.
Inflation is particularly destructive because it punishes people who depend on fixed incomes.
Public employees suffer.
Pensioners suffer.
Families with limited access to foreign currency suffer.
Savings lose value.
Planning becomes difficult.
And confidence in the national currency declines.
Once citizens begin measuring their economic lives primarily in another currency, restoring confidence becomes extremely difficult.
Cuba Cannot Solve the Salary Problem by Decree Alone
Governments can set wages.
They cannot simply decree purchasing power into existence.
Sustainable salary growth ultimately requires greater productivity and production.
More food must be produced.
More goods must be available.
Businesses must become more productive.
Transportation must function.
Electricity must become reliable.
Investment must increase.
The private and public sectors both need conditions allowing them to produce more value.
Otherwise higher nominal salaries simply compete for the same limited supply of goods.
The result can be higher prices rather than greater prosperity.
That is why wage reform must be part of broader economic reform.
Public Employees Cannot Be Forgotten
As private enterprise expands, Cuba faces another challenge.
The country still needs teachers.
It needs nurses.
It needs doctors.
It needs engineers.
It needs sanitation workers.
It needs public transportation employees.
It needs technicians.
It needs thousands of people performing essential public functions.
If the gap between private-sector and public-sector income becomes too large, government institutions may lose experienced workers.
That creates another form of inequality.
Cuba needs a compensation system capable of retaining skilled public employees while allowing private enterprise to grow.
The two sectors do not need to be enemies.
A functioning economy needs both.
Pensioners Face an Even Harder Reality
There is another group that deserves particular attention.
Cuba’s retirees.
A person who worked for decades should not reach old age only to discover that a pension cannot keep pace with basic living costs.
Older Cubans often have fewer options.
They may not be able to start businesses.
They may not have relatives abroad.
They may have health limitations.
They may depend almost entirely on fixed state income.
Economic reform should therefore examine pensions alongside salaries.
A society reveals its priorities partly through how it treats people who have already spent their working lives contributing to it.
Stop Measuring Success Only Through Statistics
Governments naturally publish economic statistics.
Growth rates.
Average salaries.
Production targets.
Investment figures.
Those numbers matter.
But ordinary people use another measurement.
Can I buy food?
Can I get to work?
Can I pay my electricity bill?
Can I repair my home?
Can I purchase medicine?
Can I occasionally take my family somewhere?
Can I save something for an emergency?
Can my children imagine building their future here?
Those questions may provide a more accurate measurement of economic confidence than any official report.
Work Must Become Worth Something Again
Cuba does not lack workers.
It does not lack educated people.
It does not lack talent.
What it increasingly lacks is an economic structure capable of converting that human capacity into prosperity.
That must change.
Workers need wages with real purchasing power.
Professionals need incentives to remain in their professions.
Entrepreneurs need room to create employment.
Public employees need adequate compensation.
Pensioners need greater economic security.
And the national currency needs credibility.
None of this can happen overnight.
But Cuba must begin moving toward an economy where the relationship between effort and opportunity makes sense again.
Because when a society reaches the point where a worker concludes that employment cannot sustain a life, eventually that worker asks another question:
Why should I stay?
And Cuba already knows what happens next.
Another professional leaves.
Another young worker leaves.
Another family separates.
Another part of the country’s human capital disappears.
The most important economic reform may therefore begin with a very simple principle:
Working in Cuba must once again make it possible to build a life in Cuba.
Until that happens, no economic model can reasonably call itself successful.
Pastor Herrera Macurán is the founder of Horizonte Cubano News. The views expressed in this article are those of the author.