The American quality of life has been going downhill since 1975.
Nonsense.
An oil spill, for example, increases GDP because someone has to clean it up, but it obviously detracts from well-being.
It directly increases GDP, but the costs it impose indirectly decrease GDP (and obviously decrease well-being).
Widespread crime and sickness would also tend to decrease GDP not increase it. Perhaps they don't decrease it as much as they decrease our actual well being, but GDP is an economic measure, not a measure of everything
GDP also ignores activity that may enhance well-being but is outside the market. The unpaid work of parents caring for their children at home doesn't show up in GDP
True but I don't see how that (or the previous point, or the next one, or many other ones, support his conclusion)
First, it accounts for income distribution.
All sorts of ways to add biases and distortions when doing that. For example if every quintile does better, but the top quintile does a lot better while the bottom does a little, then inequality increases even though broadly speaking all groups are better off. If you add a negative for inequality than you distort the picture.
Finally, it subtracts things that are well-being-reducing, such as the loss of leisure time and the costs of crime, commuting and pollution.
Generally the situation with all of these except traffic/commuting is better than it was in 1975. Unless you count the higher unemployment rates in 1975 as indicating more "leisure time".
Since Costanza is adjusting for so many things maybe he can adjust for the disruption of the higher inflation rates of the 70s.
And then of course all the technological improvements since 1975 increase the quality of our life. |
