The Economy Is Great. Why Are Americans in Such a Rotten Mood?

[barbaraann]

35. I believe that it is because the economy is measured by GDP instead of by factors that affect ordinary people.

GDP Is the Wrong Tool for Measuring What Matters
It’s time to replace gross domestic product with real metrics of well-being and sustainability
By Joseph E. Stiglitz

Since World War II, most countries around the world have come to use gross domestic product, or GDP, as the core metric for prosperity. The GDP measures market output: the monetary value of all the goods and services produced in an economy during a given period, usually a year. Governments can fail if this number falls—and so, not surprisingly, governments strive to make it climb. But striving to grow GDP is not the same as ensuring the well-being of a society.
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These documents have helped crystallize a global movement toward improved measures of social and economic health. The OECD has adopted the approach in its Better Life Initiative, which recommends 11 indicators—and provides citizens with a way to weigh these for their own country, relative to others, to generate an index that measures their performance on the things they care about. The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), traditionally strong advocates of GDP thinking, are now also paying attention to environment, inequality and sustainability of the economy.
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https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/gdp-is-the-wrong-tool-for-measuring-what-matters/