The misery index that Jimmy Carter first referred to during the 1976 campaign, and that Ronald Reagan keeps citing in his attacks on the President, was concocted during the 1973-75 recession by the late economist Arthur Okun, who called it the discomfort index. He saw it as a puckish way to spotlight the nation's economic ills. The measure is simply the sum of the inflation and jobless rates. On Election Day of 1976 the index stood at 12.8%, with inflation at 5% and unemployment at 7.8%. The rate has climbed to 20% during Carter's White House years. But does that mean...
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