pjmedia.com BYÂ GWENDOLYN SIMS
Each month economists attempt to gauge how average Americans are weathering the ups and downs of the U.S. economy. By using the simple yet clever technique of adding the U.S. unemployment rate (4.20%) to the current rate of U.S. inflation (6.81%), economists attempt to quantify the economic well-being of the country into a Misery Index.
What does the Misery Index tell us? First, we know that as the rate of inflation goes up, the cost of living increases. Next, as unemployment numbers rise, more and more people fall into poverty. Consequently, the Misery Index acts as a kind of snapshot that can be used to gauge the health of the economy as a whole since both employment and inflation impact the average American wage earner.
