Is Cuba even that poor, though, compared to its Latin American peers, and is communism the reason?
Aside from the recent weirdness with their GDP spike in World Bank's numbers, Cuba's GDP per capita is basically the same as Mexico's, and it's higher than Brazil's, neither of which are communist.
Furthermore, aside from raw GDP numbers it's higher in the UN Human Development Index rankings[1] than Brazil and Colombia along with a slew of other very capitalist countries.
If you make apples to oranges comparisons in demographics, you can make any country look bad. The UK is basically Mississippi if you take out London. The US also fares poorly if you don't count the wealthiest 15% of the population. The median Cuban isn't well off, but they aren't wildly different from others in their region.
> The US also fares poorly if you don't count the wealthiest 15% of the population.
This is false. The US has the third highest median income of any country in the world, after Luxembourg and the United Arab Emirates (which clearly does not count the income of their foreign slaves). PPP adjusted, btw.
GDP/Capita isn't median income (it should roughly correspond to mean income); many of the higher GDP/capita are also higher inequality and so lower median is quite possible.
Okay, I already ceded that point anyway. The overall point that you can cherry pick to make any country look bad in one way or another stands, however.
Is Cuba even that poor, though, compared to its Latin American peers, and is communism the reason?
Aside from the recent weirdness with their GDP spike in World Bank's numbers, Cuba's GDP per capita is basically the same as Mexico's, and it's higher than Brazil's, neither of which are communist.
Furthermore, aside from raw GDP numbers it's higher in the UN Human Development Index rankings[1] than Brazil and Colombia along with a slew of other very capitalist countries.
If you make apples to oranges comparisons in demographics, you can make any country look bad. The UK is basically Mississippi if you take out London. The US also fares poorly if you don't count the wealthiest 15% of the population. The median Cuban isn't well off, but they aren't wildly different from others in their region.
[1] https://hdr.undp.org/data-center/country-insights#/ranks