Seattle has the nation’s “least miserable” economy, according to one measure of economic performance. Dubbed the “misery index,” it is computed by adding the inflation rate to the unemployment rate.
Year-over-year inflation in Seattle is a negative 0.5 percent, according to figures from Financial Trend Forecaster®. Added to Seattle’s unemployment rate of 6 percent (based on U.S. Department of Labor data), the misery index equals 5.5 percent.
In second place with a 9.35 rate was Washington D.C. Dallas and Houston both have relatively low misery indexes, at 9.5 and 9.55 percent respectively.
Big cities with the highest misery indexes are Los Angeles, at 12.28 percent, and Detroit, at 13.87 percent.
For the U.S. overall, the index for June was 10.55 percent (unemployment = 9.5; inflation rate = 1.05). The index has ranged from a low of 2.97 in July 1953 to a high of 21.98 in June 1980, according to the website miseryindex.us.
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