Misery Index drops in 2024

The country’s adjusted misery index dropped to 18.5% last year from 22.2% in 2023, based on latest data available from the Philippine Statistics Authority. In 2024, the underemployment rate hit an all-time low of 11.9% from 12.3% a year earlier. The misery index is a measure of the health of an economy, formulated by the late American economist Arthur Okun in the 1970s. It is originally calculated as the sum of an economy’s unemployment and inflation rates to assess well-being. The higher the index, the worse the economy’s condition is. The infographic shows an “adjusted” version of the index which includes the underemployment rate* to account for job quality of those employed.