Is It Time for New Economic Metrics?
Episode description
Do we really understand what’s happening in the economic lives of regular Americans? How is inflation hitting people with middle and lower incomes, and what impact will higher interest rates have on them? What societally valuable assets are we ignoring because we don’t measure them? Some economists believe we’re not collecting the right data, and therefore, we’re not getting an accurate picture of what’s happening to individuals. Gene Ludwig founded the Ludwig Institute for Shared Economic Prosperity to create new economic indicators for unemployment, earnings, and cost of living. He discusses how and why changes could be made to economic metrics with Duke law professor and risk analyst Sarah Bloom Raskin, and Oren Cass, the director of the conservative think tank American Compass. New York Times writer David Leonhardt moderates the conversation, which took place at the end of June.