Selects: What's the misery index?

# Stuff You Should Know - The Misery Index

In this episode, Chuck and Josh explore the fascinating history of the Misery Index, an economic tool developed by Arthur Okun in the 1970s that measures how unhappy the average person is by adding together inflation and unemployment rates. Starting with how Okun's clever economic observations influenced President Kennedy's policies in the 1960s, the guys trace how this simple formula became a surprisingly reliable predictor of presidential election outcomes—until stagflation hit in the 1970s and threw everything into chaos. They dive into how presidents from Nixon through Obama have been haunted by their misery index numbers, and explore how modern economists have tried to improve upon Okun's formula by adding factors like housing costs, food stamp usage, and credit card delinquency to paint a more complete picture of economic suffering.