Back in the 1980 presidential campaign Ronald Reagan found an obscure economic metric called the Misery Index that he effectively used to depict his then opponent (Jimmy Carter) as a failure. This measure simply combined the unemployment rate with annual inflation rate — no rocket science involved. But Americans understood it and Reagan and the GOP repeated it over and over again.
en.wikipedia.org/…
But during a real economic hardship inflation is not a useful indicator of misery because deflation is far worse. For instance oil/gas prices plummeted during the crisis of 2008 and are doing so now. It’s not that low gas prices are bad. It’s that when demand crashes and prices fall people lose jobs and every sector in the economy suffers due to persistent and low demand.
So throw it away. We need a new Misery Index that even Republicans understand. The Real Misery Index will be Unemployment plus Deficit as a percentage of GDP (the amount FUTURE taxpayers are on the hook for today’s misery. The annual deficit is forecast to hit 20% of GDP in 2020.
So add 14.7% unemployment to a 20% deficit and Trump’s Real Misery Index is an eye-popping 34.7%
Sources: Fortune and Forbes (those bastions of capitalism)
Real unemployment in the United States has likely hit 14.7%, the highest level since 1940
fortune.com/…
America Is On Track For A $4 Trillion Deficit In 2020. Should It Matter?
www.forbes.com/…
US GDP was 21.4 trillion in 2019 and is forecast to fall 6% in 2020.
www.conference-board.org/…
$20 trillion / $4 trillion deficit = 20%
By contrast President Obama left with a 4.7% UE rate and a deficit of 5% of GDP for a Real Misery Index of 9.7%.
Trump has a Real Misery Index of 34.7%!
Now if the “liberal media” would just do what they did in 1980 Joe Biden will win in a landslide.