Free Republic

ith the economy apparently on the up and up post-pandemic, some Americans find themselves unhappy with the current state of affairs. The Financial Times reported that only 14% of American voters believe they are better off financially now than when Joe Biden took office, according to a recent poll. At the same time, nearly 70% of voters thought Biden’s economic policies had either hurt the U.S. economy or had no impact. Just 26% of respondents said his policies had helped. Despite these views, the unemployment rate was recently as low as 3.9%, wage inequality has decreased over the past three...

Have a holly, jolly Christmas! Despite it being far more expensive under Bidenomics. The ‘Misery Index’ is near its lowest level since pre-COVID, but Misery Index masks the true horrors of Bidennomics: 20% higher food prices, 19% higher rents and 61% higher gasoline prices under Bidenomics. Americans should be in a better financial position heading into the holidays, according to a famous formula developed in the 1960s under President Lyndon Johnson. The sum of U.S. unemployment and inflation – known as the “misery index” – fell to 6.8% in November from 7.5% the previous month. That’s the lowest since the...

Who's miserable and who's happy?The human condition lies on a vast spectrum between “miserable” and “happy.” In the economic sphere, misery tends to flow from high inflation, steep borrowing costs, and unemployment. The surefire way to mitigate that misery is through economic growth. Comparing countries’ metrics can tell us a lot about where in the world people are sad or happy. Hanke’s Annual Misery Index (HAMI) gives us the answers. My version of the misery index is the sum of the year-end unemployment (multiplied by two), inflation, and bank-lending rates, minus the annual percentage change in real GDP per capita....

The U.S. Misery Index was a concept conceived by economist Arthur M. Okun in the 1970s to describe and quantify the level of economic distress experienced by everyday Americans. The index, while not perfect, can nonetheless be used as a powerful tool to help Americans and their leaders understand the existing economic forces affecting not only their lives but the financial circumstances of the country as a whole.The index is calculated by adding the official U.S. unemployment rate to the U.S. inflation rate and is a popular indicator of economic health or distress. The higher the U.S. Misery Index, the...

It is truly a miserable time for many Americans as demonstrated by the Misery Index (inflation rate + unemployment rate). But rather than using the CPI YoY measure at 7.5%, I am using the FLEXIBLE CPI YoY to compute the misery index. And is it ever miserable! In January, the CORE flexible CPI YoY + U-3 unemployment rate hit a modern high at 22.99%. Or at least since 1967. Like the movie “50 Shades of Gray,” we have 50 shades of inflation. Examples? How about hardwood? Producer Price Index for hardwood is up 30.8% YoY. How about diesel fuel prices?...

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...

Mortgage Orb has the tantalizing headline: “Fannie Mae’s Financing for Multifamily Affordable Housing Grew Over 23%.” At first, this sounds amazing … until you realize how simply unaffordable housing is much of urban/suburban America. If you look at the following chart, you can see multifamily (5+ unit) starts remain elevated (pink box) which is not surprising given that home prices at growing at 19.1% YoY nationally (orange circle) and REAL hourly earnings have declined (yellow triangle) thanks to reemergence of inflation after 40 years. Then we have the humming dragon, rising mortgage rates, that will reduce housing affordability even further....

NBC Senior Business Correspondent Stephanie Ruhle is having a tough few days. She can no longer dismiss skyrocketing inflation as just a minor occurrence that Americans can afford. “KABOOM!” That’s the word Ruhle used to describe inflation spiking an eye-popping 7 percent year-over-year during the Jan. 12 edition of MSNBC’s Morning Joe. Ruhle stated that the increase was the “biggest yearly increase we have seen since the 1980s” and said, “This is not a good number.” After trying to spin the news by saying that “we have a very good economy,” she then took a detour back to reality: “High...

As the new year begins, investors are wondering what the year ahead will hold. Will the U.S. stock market continue to break records? Or will we see a catastrophic correction and recession?Everywhere I look, pundits are talking about the overvaluation of the stock market and the potential for market crashes ahead.It’s true, the stock market has gone up a lot over the last couple of years. The Dow is up almost 97% from its pandemic low in March 2020. The S&P 500 is up 114% over the same time.Yet, bull markets don’t end because they run out of buyers. They...

Periodically economists attempt to gauge how Average Americans are weathering the ups and downs of the economy. By using the simple yet clever technique of adding the U.S. unemployment rate (4.8%) to the rate of inflation (5.39%) economists can quantify the economic well-being of the country into a misery index. The current U.S. Misery Index is 10.19%. ... But what exactly does the Misery Index tell us? First, we know that as the rate of inflation goes up, the cost of living increases. Next, as the unemployment numbers rise, more and more people fall into poverty. Consequently, the Misery Index...

It’s not only getting more expensive to buy a home. It’s also getting much costlier to furnish a home. The price of household furniture jumped 1.2 percent in July, according to Producer Price Index data released Thursday. Compared with a year ago, the index for home furniture is up nine percent. A broader category that includes furniture and other household durable goods is up 7.2 percent, the largest gain since 1980. This is not a category showing big annual gains due to a dip in prices last year. Prices for household durables actually rose last summer. But over the last...

Viewers watching the ABC, CBS or NBC networks since Feb. 1 likely didn’t hear anything about a rising index indicating that Americans are worse off under President Joe Biden. Issues & Insights released a report on the misery index, a measure started under President Lyndon Johnson that combines the unemployment rate and the inflation rate. The idea is that “joblessness and a fast-rising cost of living produces palpable misery in the country.” The measure spiked at “the start of the COVID-19 lockdowns, jumping from 5.94 to over 15 in one month with the surge in unemployment,” Issues & Insights said....

Joe Biden’s Misery Index Rises Highlights in this week of continuing political disappointment. This column is becoming a weekly checklist on the descent of American public policy and attitudes further into the depths of frivolity, chaos, and national self-dislike. I was honored to make a small contribution last week to the edition of this website celebrating its fifth anniversary. In the editors’ statement on that anniversary, they renewed their hostility to the ineptitude and moral decrepitude of the bipartisan ruling class, their “opposition to the unaccountable administrative state,” their dislike of an American oligarchy, particularly the “Big Tech monopoly to...

Young adults today are likely unfamiliar with the term “misery index.” But they could soon learn about it the hard way, thanks to President Joe Biden’s economic incompetence. The misery index, a measure started under President Lyndon Johnson, is a simple measure combining the unemployment rate and the inflation rate. The idea being that joblessness and a fast-rising cost of living produces palpable misery in the country. The index has long been forgotten because it’s been so low for so long. It hit a high of 21.9 under Jimmy Carter way back in 1980, but by the end of President...

In the late 1970s, the U.S. experienced an economic condition known as stagflation. This meant the economy was not growing, yet prices were rapidly rising. One measure of just how bad things were was the Misery Index. This was found by adding the inflation rate to the unemployment rate. Biden’s stated economic policies will significantly raise the Misery Index. Most economists would probably say that a misery index of 7 or less is desirable. During the late 70s it hit nearly 20. That meant there were years when the inflation rate or the unemployment rate exceeded 10%. Before the pandemic,...

They have no chef and they cook for themselves, often together. They make their own yogurt. On this summer morning, Rosalynn mixes pancake batter and sprinkles in blueberries grown on their land. Carter cooks them on the griddle. Then he does the dishes.

In what follows, I update my annual Misery Index calculations. A Misery Index was first constructed by economist Art Okun as a way to provide President Lyndon Johnson with a snapshot of the economy. The original Misery Index was just a simple sum of a nation’s annual inflation rate and its unemployment rate. The Misery Index has been modified several times, first by Robert Barro of Harvard and then by myself. My modified Misery Index is the sum of the unemployment, inflation, and bank lending rates, minus the percentage change in real GDP per capita. A higher Misery Index score reflects...

I don't know too much about Jim Rickards, just found this to be an interesting video about the overall economy and some tidbits about what our government agencies are up to. The video is a 45 minutes long interview of sorts and discussion. Just posting in the event other are interested.

The five most miserable countries in the world at the end of 2014 are, in order: Venezuela, Argentina, Syria, Ukraine, and Iran. In 2014, Argentina and Ukraine moved into the top five, displacing Sudan and Sao Tome and Principe. The five least miserable are Brunei, Switzerland, China, Taiwan, and Japan. The United States ranks 95th, which makes it the 14th least miserable nation

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)Don't believe the happy talk coming out of the White House, Federal Reserve and Treasury Department when it comes to the real unemployment rate and the true “Misery Index.” Because, according to an influential Wall Street advisor, the figures are a fraud. In a memo to clients provided to Secrets, David John Marotta calculates the actual unemployment rate of those not working at a sky-high 37.2 percent, not the 6.7 percent advertised by the Fed, and the Misery Index at over 14, not the 8 claimed by the government. Marotta, who recently advised those worried about an imploding economy to...