Each year, I produce Hanke’s Annual Misery Index (HAMI). They call me the “money doctor” for my globe-spanning career of economic advisory missions, and by using readily available economic data, I can measure the temperature of the patient, so to speak, to determine just how “miserable” or “healthy” an economy is.
The idea of a misery index was fathered by Arthur Okun, a distinguished economist and Yale professor who served as chairman of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers from 1968 to 1969 during President Lyndon B. Johnson’s administration. Johnson wanted an easy way to take the economy’s temperature. Okun’s index, which he used for the United States, is equal to the sum of the inflation and unemployment rates.
