The Misery Index, invented by Arthur Okun in the 1970s, is brutally simple: add the inflation rate to the unemployment rate. The higher the number, the more economic pain ordinary people feel.
Using EconLens, I calculated it for the US, Euro Area, UK, and Japan using live data from FRED, Eurostat, and the ECB.
The US Misery Index is elevated but falling as inflation comes down. The Euro Area shows a similar trajectory starting from a higher inflation peak. The UK is worst in the group, which lines up with ongoing cost‑of‑living pressure in British headlines, while Japan remains surprisingly low despite finally having positive inflation for the first time in decades.
None of these readings are close to the 1970s stagflation peaks, when the US Misery Index exceeded 20. We are roughly at half those levels but meaningfully above the 2015–2019 lows when the index hovered under 6 in most developed economies.
EconLens ranks and plots the trajectories, and the direction matters more than the level. Right now, all four economies are trending in the right direction—the open question is whether the improvement stalls before we fully return to pre‑COVID comfort zones.
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