I'm also handicapped when trying to talk to people by my meager one-year of high school Spanish. Some of them have worked on the island and maintain close friends there. So, with those caveats in mind . . . First, my impression is that things on the whole are getting somewhat better economically in Cuba, albeit more slowly than people there would like.
Sugar remains a big problem, with very depressed world market prices.
However, nickel prices are not too bad and Cuba is one of the big producers. However, this discovery should certainly help the economic situation since Cuba formerly got its oil from the ex-Soviet Union in exchange for sugar. Cuba has oil refineries of its own. But, in the early 1990s, the oil refinery in Santiago de Cuba, where I was for most of the visit, was forced to close down and lay-off workers for lack of the oil to run it. Furthermore, it's egalitarian.