● The Mismeasurement of America: How Outdated Government Statistics Mask the Economic Struggle of Everyday Americans
Gene Ludwig
Review by Jared Bernstein via Washington Monthly
This duality between the data and how people experience the economy is the subject of The Mismeasurement of America, by Gene Ludwig, a former comptroller of the currency during the Clinton administration. Focusing on unemployment, wages, inflation, and the growing economic distance between Americans at the top and the bottom of the income scale, Ludwig argues that the problem is that the numbers I was touting were, if not quite wrong, then “profoundly misleading.” He then develops his own set of numbers, which he argues better explain why people have long felt a lot worse about the economy than you’d glean from the government’s top-line statistics. [Bernstein is the former chairman of the United States Council of Economic Advisers under President Joe Biden.]