Earth Equity News

GDP is Not a Good Measure of Wellbeing. By Louis Uchitelle, NYTimes, August 31, 2008. "As Robert F. Kennedy put it 40 years ago, the gross domestic product 'measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile'... Over the last 15 years, while the G.D.P. has continued to rise, wages have stagnated, pensions have shrunk or disappeared and income inequality has increased. Other shortcomings have become apparent. The boom in prison construction, for example, has added greatly to the G.D.P., but the damage from the crimes that made the prisons necessary is not subtracted. Neither is environmental damage nor depleted forests, although lumbering shows up in government statistics as value added. So does health care, which is measured by the money spent, not by improvements in people's health. Obesity is on the rise in America, undermining health, but that is not subtracted. 'There are numerous attempts these days to measure happiness and quality of life,' said Enrico Giovannini, chief statistician at the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development who is responsible for recent, well-attended conferences in Europe and the Middle East where the delegates explored measures of well-being that might be incorporated into the G.D.P., or used to supplement it... The Bureau of Economic Analysis is currently considering in trying to value unpaid child care -- and a new line would exist in the G.D.P. accounts for measuring, in cash, a key industry, parenting... Out of such data might one day come a G.D.P. more in tune with the way people live."