Trying to Measure Misery

The misery index that Jimmy Carter first referred to during the 1976 campaign, and that Ronald Reagan keeps citing in his attacks on the President, was concocted during the 1973-75 recession by the late economist Arthur Okun, who called it the discomfort index. He saw it as a puckish way to spotlight the nation's economic ills. The measure is simply the sum of the inflation and jobless rates. On Election Day of 1976 the index stood at 12.8%, with inflation at 5% and unemployment at 7.8%. The rate has climbed to 20% during Carter's White House years. But does that mean that life is nearly twice as miserable as four years ago? Hardly. Personal income has also risen during the period, thereby easing inflation's squeeze on buying power.

Reagan says that things have grown so unbearable that even the misery index is inadequate to measure the economic pain people now feel under Carter. He proposes a "family suffering index," which adds to unemployment the annual rate of increase in the costs of mortgages, gasoline and food. The F.S.I, stands at 77%, more than triple the level that prevailed when Carter took office. Arresting as it is, however, Reagan's yardstick has no more genuine economic validity than redefining the consumer price index so as to include only those items that go up the steepest.