THE MISERY INDEX, CARTER AND REAGAN.
THE MISERY INDEX, CARTER AND REAGAN. Arthur Okun, a prominent economist—a Democratic economist at that—devised what he called the “Misery Index”, which simply added the unemployment rate and the inflation rate. The Misery Index went up from 13.51 in February, 1977 (and 12.73 in February of 1978) to 19.72 in December, 1980 and reached a high of 21.98 in June of 1980. After Reagan became President, the Misery Index declined to 11.85 in November of 1984 when Reagan was running for reelection. For comparison, and so you can keep an eye on stagflation, the Misery Index in April of 2008 was 8.94.