How to Use misery index in a Sentence

misery index

noun
  • But his personal misery index reached a new plateau during a weekend of record-setting heat.
    — James Rainey, Los Angeles Times, 11 July 2021
  • Winds from the northwest at 10 to 20 mph with higher gusts at times add to the cold weather misery index.
    — Matt Rogers, Washington Post, 12 Dec. 2017
  • Here's a look at the teams spiraling downward in the first week of March in the latest edition of the misery index.
    — Scott Gleeson, USA TODAY, 5 Mar. 2021
  • Things have changed in our economy since the misery index was first invented in the 1970s.
    — Peter Cohan, Forbes, 17 May 2022
  • When the sum of the inflation and unemployment rates – what’s known as the misery index – is high, incumbents lose.
    — Oli Turner, The Christian Science Monitor, 5 July 2024
  • For now, the I-4 misery index is still 27% off pre-pandemic levels.
    — Adelaide Chen, orlandosentinel.com, 28 Aug. 2020
  • With the misery index approaching 22%, Carter spent two weeks at Camp David trying to make sense of it all.
    — David Oshinsky, WSJ, 29 July 2022
  • Four years later, Ronald Reagan hung the misery index, by then above 20 percent, around Carter’s neck.
    — Timothy Noah, The New Republic, 16 Mar. 2022
  • Because the unemployment rate is near its lowest point since the 1960s, the misery index is now fairly low.
    — Jeff Sommer, New York Times, 12 Apr. 2024
  • That original misery index was a simple sum of a nation’s annual inflation rate and its unemployment rate.
    — Andrew Stuttaford, National Review, 20 June 2021
  • The misery index is an informal measure of the economy that combines the inflation and unemployment rates.
    — Rob Wile, NBC News, 14 July 2023
  • The Fed probably thinks the misery index too amateurish a measure on which to base monetary policy.
    — Timothy Noah, The New Republic, 11 Aug. 2023
  • The misery index is elevated because of high inflation and will rise higher if the unemployment rate goes up before the consumer price index moves down.
    — Jim Puzzanghera, BostonGlobe.com, 3 June 2022
  • The firm found this level through exclusive analysis of where the misery index would need to sit for the party currently in office to retain power, based on history.
    — Alex Harring, CNBC, 10 Sep. 2024
  • In contrast with that innocent, if boozy, summer and the fire pit of 2011, another memorable record-setting year, this time the misery index is dialed so much higher.
    — Dallas News, 19 July 2022
  • Economists agree the misery index is not a particularly sophisticated measure.
    — Chris Isidore, CNN, 8 Feb. 2022
  • But what’s increasingly raising the misery index of this work is that the plan commission has become — by default and despite no policy-making powers — the city’s front line on the gentrification battlefield.
    — Dallas News, 23 Aug. 2022
  • My version of the misery index is the sum of the year-end unemployment, inflation, and bank-lending rates, minus the annual percentage change in real GDP per capita.
    — Steve H. Hanke, National Review, 16 Mar. 2022
  • Historically, the misery index has accurately predicted the presidential outcome, with a high index number predicting that the incumbent party was set to lose.
    — Aimee Picchi, CBS News, 30 Oct. 2024
  • The misery index, when calculated by Elliott’s superhuman standards, is astronomical.
    — Mike Hembree, USA TODAY, 2 Oct. 2017
  • In three days, the Raiders (2-6) will be in Denver to face the Broncos in a battle between the AFC West’s first- and last-place teams, which seems likely to increase the misery index.
    — Michael Silver, New York Times, 3 Nov. 2025
  • Forecast in detail The meteorological misery index is soaring, with both temperatures and humidity reaching close to July maximum levels of discomfort.
    — Matt Rogers, Washington Post, 9 July 2024
  • Okun’s misery index was modified by Harvard professor Robert Barro in 1999, by including the 30-year government-bond yield and the difference between the long-term-trend rate of real GDP growth and the actual rate of real GDP growth.
    — Steve H. Hanke, Fortune, 16 Apr. 2026

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'misery index.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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