Economy’s up, well-being is not

The New York Times

By the official statistics, 10 years after the fall of Lehman Brothers “the American economy has fully recovered,” said David Leonhardt. Look closely, however, “and you can see the lingering effects of the financial crisis everywhere.” Citizens anxious and angry about the economy have embraced a leader who has thrown the presidency into chaos. “So who are you going to believe: those statistics or your own eyes?” The trouble is that the measures that dominate the conversation mostly describe the “experiences of the affluent.” Stocks, for example, are worth 60 percent more than when the financial crisis began in 2007. But most shares are owned by the wealthy, and half of Americans don’t own stocks at all. The typical household’s net worth remains about 20 percent lower than it was in early 2007. Meanwhile, the most cited unemployment figure doesn’t count the millions of Americans who have given up looking for work. Indicators such as the unemployment rate and the stock market averages don’t capture “the realities of American life,” and by glossing over growing inequality they’ve become increasingly misleading. We need better ones. “The whole point of statistics is to describe reality. When a statistic no longer does so, it’s time to find a new one.”