In 1959, Cuba suffered a revolution and the regime of Batista was replaced by Fidel Castro and his cohorts. Incredibly, Fidel Castro is still alive today but because of poor health relinquished his Presidential position to his brother Raul Castro in 2008, and of course, Cuba as a country still exists, a scant 90 miles from Key West, Florida. In February of 1962, America imposed an embargo on Cuba, an embargo that might be lifted soon but still is in effect; in the meanwhile Cuba has trading partners and alliances with other countries, most significantly with Venezuela, Russia, and China.
The website solidarity-us.org has estimated the Cuban growth rate from the years 1950 to 2006 at 0.80%, in which from 1950 to 1958, when Batista ran the country the growth rate was 1.61% nearly matching ”Latin America's average per capita GDP grew at a rate of 1.67%," which was from the period of 1950 to 2006. Additionally, "In 1950, Cuba ranked seventh in per capita GDP in (the 47 countries of) Latin America (and Caribbean)," but because of its anemic growth rate since then, the GDP per capita of Cuba at the present day is estimated for 2013 and as reported by tradingeconomics.com is at $5351, whereas for Trinidad and Tobago it is at $16093, and for Puerto Rico, a United States territory, it is at $19801. Quite clearly, the Cuba economy since the revolution has done quite poorly, especially poorly in comparison to other Latin American countries, as well as in comparison to where Cuba once ranked before Castro, despite the fact that Cuba has made alliances and received funding from countries that typically have been inimical to America and its interests.
The above does not mean necessarily that conditions under Batista were better in aggregate for most Cubans, although it certainly does mean it was better for certain privileged people under Batista, but it also means that in whole Cuba as a nation has regressed, in other words, while there may be a more even distribution of income in Cuba, that simply translates into essentially being that there are more poor people in Cuba that are poorer, with the middle class simply no longer existing.
In regards to Puerto Rico and Cuba, in comparison of these two Caribbean countries, while Puerto Rico has its own troubles and a rather shaky economy with high unemployment and high debt, it still represents as a massive success in comparison to Cuba. The fact that one country, Puerto Rico, is a territory of the United States, while the other country, Cuba, has an embargo impressed upon it by the United States, would strongly imply that spitting in the face of your rich Uncle, is probably not going to be beneficial for your people or your country. Further to the point, Trinidad and Tobago whose GDP is three times the amount of Cuba, proves conclusively that if Cuba would make the structural and political changes that would normalize its relations with other Latin American countries and America that its GDP would surely grow so as to make up for lost ground.
They say that you cannot be an island to yourself, Cuba proves the point, has proved the point, for a period of over fifty years, that their version of all for one and one for all, has enriched only the very elite of the elite, and left the masses worst off and with little economic hope.