An elderly woman, her arm fractured and merely supported by a sling due to the lack of available plaster, endured excruciating tooth pain while waiting in line at a Cuban bank to collect two months of her accumulated pension.
The bank teller only disbursed one of her checks—2,200 pesos—citing a lack of authorization to issue two payments in one day. She left in tears.
This heart-wrenching story was shared on Facebook by Yulieta Hernández Díaz, an engineer and director of the private company Pilares Construcciones. Her post quickly mirrored the severe crisis affecting Cuba's senior citizens.
The account highlights two distressing incidents on the same day. While Yulieta's husband witnessed the scene at the bank, she was at an Identification Card office where power outages had stalled operations. People who arrived before dawn waited until 4 p.m. without electricity.
Power Outages and Bureaucratic Hurdles
At this office, another elderly woman arrived after walking over six miles. With officials preparing to leave, they were reluctant to assist her. Yulieta intervened, only to hear she should return "tomorrow... or the next day... or however many times necessary, until there's electricity."
The woman, Yulieta recounted, had gone months without receiving her pension. She was too exhausted to keep returning and admitted she had barely eaten. Moved by her plight, Yulieta gave her money for food and promised to help her with the line the next day. "She was too ashamed to accept it, crying as I convinced her," Yulieta detailed.
The Struggle for Survival
Yulieta's story is far from unique. Since September 2025, the minimum pension in Cuba has been 4,000 pesos per month, barely seven or eight dollars on the informal market. A carton of 30 eggs costs between 3,000 and 4,000 pesos, swallowing nearly the entire pension.
Economist Javier Pérez Capdevila estimates that meeting basic needs requires at least 96,060 pesos monthly, with 70,070 pesos allocated just for food. The gap between what retirees receive and what they need for survival is staggering.
An ASIC survey of 506 retirees revealed that 99% say their pensions do not cover food, housing, or medicine, and 98.8% feel abandoned by institutions. Shockingly, 79% of those over 70 cannot manage three meals a day.
Cuban Government's Inability to Provide
Compounding the problem are bureaucratic inefficiencies and power outages. In June 2026, the government of Granma admitted it lacked funds for its 111,000 retirees. By March 2026, the Ministry of Labor and Social Security conceded that there were "no resources to support vulnerable individuals."
Cuba has only 156 elder care homes with 12,697 beds for over 1.7 million registered retirees, leaving 51 municipalities without any senior care services.
The monthly ordeal for Cuban seniors to collect their pensions is marked by endless lines, powerless offices, and indifferent counters telling them to return later.
Yulieta clarified that her post was not to target any specific institution: "I've long lost hope that pointing fingers will change anything." Instead, she calls for solidarity among Cubans: "Our elders, most without Internet or family, deserve a kind word. Giving up a spot in line could ease someone's suffering."
By the end of 2025, 89% of the Cuban population lived in extreme poverty, according to the Cuban Observatory of Citizen Audit. "More than 90% of the population, over eight million people, live today in conditions of poverty or misery," Yulieta wrote, encapsulating the scale of a crisis decades in the making by the regime.
Elderly Crisis in Cuba: Key Questions and Answers
What are the pension challenges faced by Cuban seniors?
Cuban seniors struggle with low pensions that don't cover basic needs, exacerbated by bureaucratic delays and insufficient resources from the government.
How does the Cuban government support its elderly population?
The Cuban government provides limited support, with inadequate pension amounts and a lack of sufficient elder care facilities, leaving many without necessary assistance.