The macroeconomic discourse of the dictatorship is full of paradoxes. A gross domestic product (GDP) that grows, without formal employment doing so at a similar rate. A country where life is cheaper than in Central America, but whose citizens earn less. Remittances that support thousands of families, but disappear from official statistics. All of this, as a result of the mirage of macroeconomic figures that hide the reality of the unrest in which the majority of Nicaraguans live.
What this mirage tries to hide is the existence of an ‘economy of malaise’, in which the country produces enough food, but citizens cannot purchase it in sufficient quantities. In parallel, the small circle that supports the dictatorship now headed by Rosario Murillo and her husband and co-president Daniel Ortega is being disproportionately enriched.
The regime “does not offer alternatives for the future for the population.” Instead, it seeks to consolidate its economic power group, says the study “Economy of Malaise,” prepared by economist Marco Aurelio Peña, for the Center for Transdisciplinary Studies of Central America (CETCAM).
Luciano is an example of this. This driving professional who requested anonymity as a condition of speaking with CONFIDENTIALleft Nicaragua and traveled to Costa Rica in search of a job that would generate more income, and he found it. After a time in the southern neighbor, nostalgia for the family he had left behind led him to return to the country, to work at what he knows how to do well: driving. In this case, a taxi.
“The economic situation here in Nicaragua is bad. Everything is expensive, and people don’t want to pay what a taxi ride costs. If this continues, maybe I’ll return to Costa Rica,” said the man. There are many like him in the country. They are the ones who complain – even if they don’t know the term – about living in an economy of discomfort. Like the one in Nicaragua.
Ortega, the “good student”
Consistently, the regime obtains good ratings from the International Monetary Fund. Those that the regime then displays to say that it is doing things well, and that the opposition deplores by highlighting its shortcomings. Beyond the usual explanations and the diplomatically ambiguous language they use, economist Peña has a note: the IMF works with official figures. It is logical that the dictatorship receives such good evaluations, if the examination is based on its figures.
“The official macroeconomy has been well rated by the IMF’s technical missions in variables such as economic growth expectations, the level of monetary reserves and the solidity of the financial system. However, the macroeconomic x-ray is perceived as unreal when contrasted with the economic realities of people and communities,” warns the author.
He adds that these technical reports produce a ‘mirage effect’ that hides the real living conditions of people. Peña compares the happy numbers for which the regime congratulates itself, with the reality of small farmers, informal employees, entrepreneurs, self-employed workers or independent professionals, for whom money does not yield enough. It doesn’t matter if they are running their homes, or their small subsistence businesses.
“The Nicaraguan economy during the period 2023-2025 has combined a peculiar state of macroeconomic stability with an economy of unrest. It is a paradoxical situation,” explains Peña.
Salaries rise, but the basic basket is unattainable
Between 2021 and 2025, the average nominal salary had a positive variation of 3,634 córdobas. This represents an increase of 30% and, in fact, a slight improvement when compared to the increase in the cost of the basic basket, which was 28% in that same period. From every point of view, those two percentage points are not enough for the situation to be reversed in the short term.
“The data shows that the level of salaries fails to reach the cost of the basic basket. The gap is extremely worrying because even if people allocate 100% of their ordinary income, they are not able to cover a basic consumption basket of 53 products,” explains the author of the study. “In this economy of malaise, the basics become unaffordable for many people,” he adds.
Enough food is produced, but there is not enough to buy it
Nicaragua is a self-sufficient country in most basic food items. With the exception of rice, the country produces enough beans, beef, sugar, corn or cheese to ensure domestic consumption, and plenty for export. Despite this, between December 2020 and December 2025the ‘Food’ component of the basic basket, grew 53%, while the total basic basket grew only 43.3% in that same period.
“Therefore, it is the food component that structurally contributes to the cost of the basic consumer basket, which evaporates the real income of family economies, as it represents 71% of the total cost of the basic basket in 2025. This means that with a C$500 bill, less food is purchased than before,” reflects the expert.
The cheapest. The most expensive
Nicaragua is the cheapest country in Central America. This is confirmed by anyone who has traveled to two or more countries in the region, or who simply looks for the official data for each country. However, residents perceive that the money is not enough for even the basics. Nor to aspire to have a vehicle. Or have the children receive private education. Or travel. Or buy a house.
“Faced with the erosion of purchasing power through the basic basket, the country is perceived as expensive not because its price level is comparatively high, but because their salaries are low“concludes Peña. The answer is precarious consumption. Families opt for lower quality goods at more favorable prices, or consume more carbohydrates and less protein; and acquire smaller quantities.
The statistical mirage of full employment
According to the Central Bank of Nicaragua, around 97% of people have jobs. This, despite the deficiencies and delays caused by the Nicaraguan economy, in which around 70% of the economy is classified as informal. This leads the economist to assure that “one of the best kept mysteries is the empirical basis on which the official figures maintain that the country has full employment”.
Not even the two largest economies on the isthmus (Panama and Costa Rica) They claim to have reached those levels of employability. “These ‘happy figures’ (those from the BCN) defy common sense because they do not correspond to the reality of those seeking employment opportunities. Employment levels depend on the degree of economic expansion of a country,” he recalled.
Between 2023 and 2024, 11,926 new jobs were created in the country (using statistics from the Nicaraguan Social Security Institute, INSS, as a parameter), while foreign direct investment (FDI) grew by 238.4 million dollars. But a decade earlier, between 2014 and 2015, 63,338 new jobs were created, with an increase of 65.8 million in FDI. These numbers lead the economist to wonder how it was possible that, receiving 3.6 times less FDI, 5.3 times more formal jobs were created.
Peña offers one more piece of information to illustrate this paradox. The number of INSS affiliates in 2024 was 802,814. This figure is lower than the 857,219 formal jobs registered in 2016, “observing an occupational lag of approximately ten years,” he detailed.
