The misery index is meant to measure the degree of economic distress felt by everyday people, due to the risk of (or actual) joblessness combined with an increasing cost of living. The misery index is calculated by adding the unemployment rate to the inflation rate.

The index is a measure of financial distress. Born out of the 1970s, when consumers faced the dismal reality of prices for everyday goods surging at double-digit rates even as unemployment skyrocketed—a phenomenon known as stagflation—the index combined the inflation rate plus the unemployment rate.

US Misery Index is at a current level of 11.86, down from 12.14 last month and up from 10.16 one year ago.

The Misery Index is defined as the sum of current, seasonally adjusted unemployment plus the current inflation rate (MI = U + I). So, for example, if the current unemployment rate is 4.7% and the current inflation rate is 2.3%, the economy will have a Misery Index of 7.0.