The Biden 'misery index'

 Just the News:

Americans are growing increasingly pessimistic about the current state and future of the country as the political phenomenon of misery takes hold, presenting problems for President Biden and Democrats ahead of this year's midterm elections.

As the national mood becomes gloomier under the Biden administration, a useful indicator for measuring economic pain has resurfaced after years of dormancy: the so-called misery index.

Created by the late economist Arthur Okun, the misery index became widely known in the 1970s and early 1980s during the presidencies of Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. It adds together two measures of economic pain — the unemployment rate and inflation for consumers — to give a sense of the economic distress felt by everyday Americans.

The index hit 11% in November and December and reached 11.5% last month — higher than any month in 2008 when the Great Recession began and just behind its highest levels in late 2009 and early 2010 when unemployment was around 10%. The current level is the highest in a decade, not including the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Economists don't consider the misery index a sophisticated metric but say it's a useful tool.

"It's short-hand, it's a rule of thumb," David Wessel of the Brookings Institution told CNN. "The average person can understand it."

The rise in the misery index doesn't appear to match the economy's strong growth — on the surface.

Indeed, on paper, the economy appears to be doing well. Gross domestic product grew by 5.7% last year, the largest annual increase since 1984. The labor market is strong, with the unemployment rate at just 4%. And workers' wages have increased across multiple industries.

Yet, Americans aren't feeling good about the economy. Only 23% say the economic conditions in the country today are good or excellent, while 37% say they're poor, according to a Gallup poll from last month.

CNN's most recent poll on the economy found that 75% of Americans are worried about the state of the economy in their own community and 63% say the U.S. economy is in poor shape.

A primary reason for the gloomy outlook appears to be soaring inflation, which has caused prices to rise on everyday items from groceries to gasoline.

According to the same CNN poll, 80% of respondents expressed concern about this very problem.

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Well, you are reminded of it every time you go by the gas pump or buy groceries.  It is hard to ignore and makes you want to vote against every Democrat on the ballot.  Biden deliberately drove up the price of gas and that has had a cascading effect on prices of getting goods to market contributing to inflation.