Updated February 18, 2026 at 11:13 AM CST
CARACAS — Venezuela's economy doesn't give Raul Parra too much time to rest.
By day, the 47-year-old is a P.E. teacher at a public school. In the evenings he works a second job as a physical therapist, visiting patients at their homes or treating their injuries in a small apartment that he rents with a friend.
"It's tough to be a teacher in Venezuela," Parra says, as he rolls a massage gun over a patient's shoulder.
As a full time teacher, with an education degree, Parra only gets paid around $160 a month by Venezuela's government. An amount that barely covers his groceries.
"I need to work multiple jobs so that I can pay for services, pay my rent, and help my parents" he said.
With teachers, nurses and other public servants making less than $200 a month - and an inflation reaching 500% last year - Venezuela continues to be a tough place to make a living.
A prolonged economic crisis caused by mismanagement of the nation's resources, and worsened by U.S. sanctions has forced millions of people to leave the country.
Now, however, there are tentative signs of recovery. The U.S. has eased sanctions following the removal of Nicolas Maduro, and the former president's allies have opened up parts of the nation's oil industry to foreign investment.
"January 3rd was a milestone for us," Parra said. "We feel that now there is an opportunity for workers to have better wages."
Economist Jesus Palacios said that a recent decision by the U.S. Treasury to allow American companies to buy Venezuelan oil could easily boost the government's income, and spearhead a recovery.
Oil is Venezuela's main export and generates more than 80% of the nation's foreign currency earnings.
In recent years Venezuela had to sell its oil at a discount to Asian traders, who were willing to skirt U.S. sanctions, Palacios explains. Now the oil can be sold at regular prices.
A new law opening up the country's oil fields to private investors is also expected to increase production, further boosting the economy.
"The economy will probably grow 10-12% this year," Palacios said. With more dollars in the country, the nation's currency, the Bolivar, will stop losing its value - and in turn that will slow down inflation.
"There's already reports of weekly inflation going down," said Tony Frangie Mawad, who runs the Venezuelan business site Ecosistema. "The economy is going in a better direction than it was going last year when we were close to another contraction."
At her two bedroom apartment in the outskirts of Caracas, Nelly Padilla hopes that the government will use some of its new oil windfall, to improve her wages.
She's a teacher at a public high school, and like most of her peers she earns $160 a month – though her official wage is worth less than $2. The rest of the money comes from a monthly "economic war bonus" and a food subsidy.
By relying on bonuses and subsidies instead of raising base salaries, the government avoids increasing pension obligations or severance payments.
"My daughter has diabetes," said Padilla, who has been a teacher for more than two decades. "So I am always under pressure to get enough money for her medicines."
The signs of Venezuela's economic meltdown are evident in Padilla's neighborhood of Caricuao, a district of large apartment blocks built in the 1960s with public financing.
The parking lots in front of the buildings are dotted with abandoned cars, whose owners have either left the country, or no longer have the means to fix their vehicles. Water cuts are common due to old infrastructure and mismanagement of the local water company.
To supplement her income, Padilla sells ice creams to her neighbors - that she buys at a local factory. She earns about $40 a month from those sales and another $30 tutoring a neighbor's child in math and Spanish.
"We are in a horrible situation," Padilla said. "This has to change fast."
But not everyone is expecting a quick turnaround.
Ricardo Solano works night shifts at a local bread factory, where he makes close to $500 a month, if he agrees to take on additional shifts on weekends. About a quarter of that goes toward rent.
"I feel like the economy here is killing me," Solano said.
Solano is 33 and he has trained as a chef. But he says that jobs at restaurants are paying less than what he makes at the factory. "It seems like it's impossible here to save for retirement, or to buy a house," he said.
To escape Venezuela's sputtering economy, Solano headed to the U.S. two years ago, and made it all the way to Mexico City. He had to turn back last year however, after President Trump cancelled a program for asylum seekers.
Now Solano says he would like to move to a country where there are good job opportunities but where it's easy to get legal residency. He's considering Spain, or Argentina.
If he leaves, Solano will join over 8 million Venezuelans who have already left everything behind, chasing a future Venezuela could no longer promise.
"Here you have your family, your roots" he said "But for some people it's still too difficult to get ahead in Venezuela."
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