by Calculated Risk on 4/18/2023 12:12:00 PM

For fun, here is a graph of economist Arthur Okun's misery index (popularized by President Reagan).

Okun added inflation and the unemployment rate together as a measure of "misery".

Click on graph for larger image.

Currently YoY inflation is at 5.0%, and the unemployment rate is at 3.5% for a "misery index" value of 8.5. 

This is down from 9.6 in February, and below the median of 9.6 over the last 50 years.