Philippine Misery Index inches down in February

One of the many ways to measure an economy’s health is through the “misery index.” Formulated by the late American economist Arthur Okun in the 1970s, the index was originally calculated as the sum of an economy’s unemployment and inflation rates to assess well-being. The higher an economy’s misery index, the worse its economic condition. This infographic shows an “adjusted” version of the index to include the underemployment rate* to account for the job quality of those employed. Based on latest available data from the Philippine Statistics Authority, the adjusted misery index in February slightly dipped to 25.7% from 26.9% in January largely due to improving job quality (lower underemployment) and easing inflation from the previous month. However, this was higher than 22.6% in the same month last year.