The work was developed in the framework of the Territorial Scientific-Technical Program of Havana City “Social Effects of the economic adjustment in the city. Diagnosis and perspectives”, at the instante of the PCC in the capital.

It presents a conceptual reflection on the peculiarity of poverty phenomenon in Cuba and its main determinig factors in the nineties, considering the fact that in our country there is protection and social guarantees that allow families' access to their nutrition, basic services and housing, regardless of their incomes, avoiding social exclusion.

There are exposed the sociodemographic and socioeconomic characterizations of the population implied in the capital, starting from the data processing of the Survey on the Economic Situation in homes, followed by such population's perceptions about its problems, its expectations and the way in which they face difficulties. Although the reach of the research is formally limited to Havana City, the characteristics of this territory inside the country allow indirect inferences of national reach.

Although poverty already constitutes a classic object of study to regional and world scale, the work presents a significant originality in three directions: the one of building a pioneer study, in the revolutionary stage, on a topic of political, social and economic significance of extraordinary importance to our socialism model as a whole; the second is to surpass the narrow methodological frameworks of the Economic Sciences to incorporate, in organic way, methodological and analytic elements of sociology; the third is to articulate classic quantitative methods and qualitative methods and integrate them with coherence and rigor. It is added to these elements the elaboration of specific software to measure in deciles, which could be a very useful tool for many other researches.

It has extense up-to-date bibliographical references; a rigorous sampling selection and high organicity among objectives, methods, conclusions and recommendations.

The research usefulness is of the first magnitude; it constitutes a sign of alert to our political and governmental instances, and not only to the ministries in charge of particular spheres. In a same way the identification of causes and proposals, enumerate cardinal elements for the decision making in political matters.