So how does the U.S. look on this year's misery index?
It ranks 134 out of 157 countries with a misery score of 16.882, driven by unemployment, which is a big one if you are unemployed. It's hard to compare this number to previous year based on the changing number of countries ranked and slight changes in methodology (you can if you want, 2021, 2020), but suffice to say, that 16.882 score for 2022 is quite a bit lousier than 2018's figure released in 2019 during the Trump years, which clocked in at 8.7 with the driving misery factor interest rates, or now, bank lending rates.
Basically, Joe Biden has doubled the amount of economic misery in the U.S. even as he insists that the economy is going swimmingly and he presents this or that number as his proof of it. Like Krugman, Joe has no methodology, so any old number will do provided it helps his political cause. Then like Paul Krugman, he whines that he doesn't understand what is going on, why consumers don't quite view the economy the way he wants them to view it.
There are lots of other uses for the index as well -- if we look at it in terms of migration from various countries, we can see where the real misery is (Venezuela) and where it isn't -- Central America, and certainly China, which outranks the U.S. on this scale. That does a lot to tell us where the economic migrants are coming from and where the true political asylum cases might be coming from.
In any case, Krugman could benefit from this index in understanding why the American people don't share Joe Biden's view that the economy is glorious, and why he himself doesn't see the connection between whatever his numbers are, and Americans' own views on the economy.
Check it out here.
If you are unemployed in today’s job market, it is either because you don’t want a job or have zero marketable skills.
Or live in an economically depressed area and won’t leave.
I hear they have openings in the Ukrainian Army.
This could be better if it broke it down by gender.
Which women have the most content women.
And why are the women content or not content would also be useful. Are they not content because none of their men measure up to 50 first dates? Or are they content because they don’t have movies and men are allowed to be men.
Here’s a key question: What are you counting as “unemployment”?
Government’s play games with that number all the time. They put all kinds of people on disability so they don’t have to count them.
They claim that those who have been unemployed for a long time “gave up” (without ever asking them if they “gave up”) and therefore do not count them.
So the real unemployment rate is invariably higher than what governments claim it is. For a more accurate picture, look at the total employment rate. Anybody who looks will see that has been steadily decreasing in the US since the 2008 financial crisis. The only time its decline was halted was under President Trump.
Togo, Ivory Coast, and Niger are all happier countries than the US? Why aren’t Americans trying to sneak into those countries as illegal aliens?