The rations book, the butcher, and the market

With the rations book, you can get some pretty good deals on food. For example, you get 4 oz of coffee a month. For a country that drinks a lot of coffee, as it does produce its own, this is about 4 or 5 days worth. Not going far. The typical Cuban salary for engineers, doctors, computer programmers is between 250-600 pesos (moneda nacional). If 25 pesos= 1 CUC (convertible peso), which is ~ $1, you do the math. With non-market items (like toothpaste) costing pretty much the same or more as they would in the US, all of this = another job. For example, being a prostitute. Or hassling tourists. A lot of Cuban doctors are lucky to have a bike to go to work.