Wednesday, May 10, 2023

Misery Index

For fun, here is an update to the 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".

Misery IndexClick on graph for larger image.

Currently YoY inflation is at 4.9%, and the unemployment rate is at 3.4% for a "misery index" value of 8.3. 

This is down from 8.5 in March, and below the median of 9.6 over the last 50 years.

The all-time low was 5.0 during Obama's 2nd term.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.