Cuba’s economy and the US embargo

FT journalist Cardiff Garcia has written a long blog on Cuba’s troubled economy and the dilemma its leaders face in negotiating removal of the US embargo.

The Cuban state still directly controls most of the economy and employs the majority of the population: between about 60-75 per cent of the workforce, depending on how you account for off-the-books second jobs and participation in the limited private sector.

State salaries are abysmally low, roughly the equivalent of $25 USD per month by official figures. In real terms, wages have never recovered from their collapse when Soviet subsidies to Cuba ended more than twenty-five years ago. Pensioners such as my 89-year-old great aunt Juana receive the equivalent of $8 USD a month and a few supplemental items from what is left of the

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