“It seems like a lie, but it’s not,” she said. “It’s not a matter of living. It’s a matter of survival.”

A survey conducted by a group of national universities found that in 2016, about 80 percent of Venezuelans were living in poverty.

In October, the cost of the basic monthly food basket that a family of four would need rose 48 percent during the month, according to the Analysis and Documentation Center for Workers, a nonprofit organization associated with the teachers union. Wage increases have lagged far behind the rise in costs of goods and services, putting them further out of the reach of consumers.

David, a 42-year-old hairdresser with three children, started paring back his expenses several years ago. First went the annual vacation to visit family in Mérida, his hometown, in western Venezuela. Then went the biweekly clothes purchases for his children. The family has not gone to the cinema, once a regular family treat, since last year.

Like other families hovering around the poverty line, they subscribe to a government program that is supposed to provide a box of subsidized food once a month, though deliveries are often less frequent. A recent box contained about four and a half pounds of black beans, the same amount of sugar, slightly more than two pounds of corn meal mix, five cans of tuna and four and a half pounds of pasta.

“For a family of five, that goes quickly,” he said. “We don’t eat much.”

David, like many Venezuelans, spends a lot of time waiting in line to buy basic goods — when they are available. The other day he awoke before 5 a.m. and stood in line for nearly two and a half hours to buy a canister of cooking gas. By the time he got to the front of the line, the supply had run out.

As he told the story, he seemed neither annoyed nor angry. Just resigned. “It’s like something from a movie where you become accustomed to something that you shouldn’t be accustomed to,” he said. “Standing in line erodes the mind, erodes your thinking, the capacity to create.”