It was mentioned on the radio, I should have fact checked before posting. According to the UN they are ranked 40th slightly ahead of the US.
As far as the wages goes, it's kind of apples and oranges because we're comparing not just rich and poor but completely different ideologies. Also the US embargo kind of defied logic and was extremely hypocritical, but for some reason it became this huge thing that was disproportionately hated, like immigration, socialism, the war on drugs, etc. so probably political suicide to remove, Americans don't trade with Cuba, even if most Americans have no idea why.
Yes, the US backed Batista to stage a coup against the democratically elected Cuban government and backed his regime for several years, during this time Batista sold national assets to US interests, suppressed a number of rights, and killed tens of thousands of people. All with US backing and even US aid.
After Fidel and Guevara took power the US set up sanctions and put trade embargoes in place and demanded free elections in Cuba.
It defied logic because a dictator with US backing overthrew the democratically elected government in the first place. Despite the fact that he was horribly oppressive and turned the country into a plaything for the rich, the US kept backing him. Batista was far worse than Fidel.
The US also trades with plenty of countries with bad humanitarian records, the problem with Cuba is that they had the gall to set up an evil socialist country (gasp) right in the backyard of the US, and Socialism is far worse than any oppression in the eyes of some it seems.
@Leggy comparing incomes between Cuba and Bali is really comparing apples and oranges, they have two completely different systems of economics and therefore the value of money is different. However, of course Cuba is going to have low wages when it's effectively isolated from any trading partner in the region, I'm sure they had a very good quality of life when they could trade and were supported by the Soviet Union. You also can't compare wages in a communist country with a capitalist one because of the amount of support people get from the state, wages are higher in the far East of Europe now than when they were part of the Soviet Union but the standard of living is much lower.
Do you also wish to turn a blind eye to all the Gay people he executed, Anyone who opposed him was summarily executed. People like Castro do not stay in Power for 50 years because the people love them.
You also seem to have forgotten to mention that Castro was responsible for bringing the world to the very edge of all out Nuclear war, and by all out I mean all out. My old man was in the RAF at the time based in the Middle East. They had Vulcan bombers loaded, with Pilots sitting in them ready to go at about 2 minutes notice through out that period.
I didn't say he was universally great, I'm saying the US were hypocrites because the brutal dictator they liked was replaced by a leader that was better. Plenty of countries that the US trade with treat homosexuality as illegal, including a big chunk of the middle east. Until a few years ago it was considered a mental illness in China. Cuba offers free gender reassignment surgery, in the US homosexuality was illegal in 14 states until 2003.
Cuba also does hold elections, but it's a single party system similar to the Soviet Union wherein groups of people vote for the president on behalf of their constituents, it's not particularly democratic but also not so far removed from the two party/electoral college system.
The Cuban missile crisis was started because the US put nuclear missiles in Europe and pointed them at the Soviet Union, the Soviet Union responded by putting missiles in the Caribbean. So blaming it on Cuba rather than Turkey is very much a biased and one sided look at history.