Just as in America, in Britain too, the story told by official statistics does not alwaysmatch people’s experience.That is especially true in places like Newcastle, a former shipbuilding city, which lost out to competition from Asia in the 1970s and has seen living standards stagnate ever since.The U.S. economy, we are told, is booming.

In the past two quarters, gross domestic product has risen by more than 3%, the stock market is soaring and unemployment is down to a 17-year low of 4.1%. Many people, though,don’t feel that upside.The perception gap is huge. Unemployment, more broadly measured, is higher than the headline number suggests because many people have simply given up looking for work or are working in part-time jobs when they want a full-time job.

One of the prime faults of GDP is that it deals in averages and aggregates.Aggregates hide the inequality. And averages don’t tell us very much at all.Barring a few recessions,the U.S. economy has been on a near relentless upward path since the 1950s. Yet according to a Pew Research Center report, the average hourly wage for nonmanagement private-sector work was $20.67 in 2014, just $1.49 higher than in 1964, adjusted for inflation.

Studies suggest that people care more about relative than absolute wealth.If that is true, then as a minority have become richer, the majority have grown more miserable. In a famous experiment carried out at Emory University, two monkeys were put side by side and given cucumbers as a reward for performing a task. When one of the monkeys was given better-tasting grapes instead, the monkey receiving cucumbers became distraught,flinging its now despised reward at its trainer.The problems with using GDP as a barometer go beyond masking inequality.

Invented in the US in the 1930s,the figure is a child of the manufacturing age–good at measuring physical production but not the services that dominate modern economies. How would GDP measure the quality of mental-health care or the availability of day-care centers and parks in your area? Eventhe Belarusian economistwho practically invented GDP do not like the fact that it counted armaments and financial speculation as positive outputs. Above all, he said,GDP should never be confused with well-being.That suggests we need to find different ways of measuring our success.For the most part,we have become obsessed with a single measure that offers only limited information.

【參考譯文】比如，在美國，還有英國，官方統計數據和人們的感受并不總是相符，這種情況對諸如紐卡斯爾這樣的城市來說尤為如此。紐卡斯爾此前曾是一個造船城市，20世紀70年代不敵來自亞洲國家的競爭，人民生活水平從此一直停滯不前。我們被告知，美國經濟正快速發展。

前兩個季度，國內生產總值(GDP)增長超3%，股市飄紅，失業率降至4.1%，創17年來的新低。但是，許多人感受不到這種經濟增長。數據和人們感知之間的差距十分巨大。若從廣義程度上衡量失業率，那么它則要比報紙頭條刊登的數字要高些，因為許多人干脆不找工作了，或者在找工作時做著兼職工作。

GDP的一個主要缺陷就是它反映的是總數和平均數。看總數的話，就看不到不平等的一面，而平均數根本沒有什么實質性的信息。美國經濟自20世紀50年代以來除了幾次經濟衰退外，一直不斷高速增長。但皮尤研究中心(Pew Research Center)的一份報告表明，扣除通貨膨脹因素后，2014年私營部門非管理層員工的時薪為20.67美元，比1964年僅多出1.49美元。

多項研究顯示，比起絕對所得，人們更加關心相對所得。如果事實是那樣的話，在少數人變富的同時，多數人就得變的更窮。埃默里大學(Emory University)做過一個的著名實驗，將兩只猴子放在一起，每完成一項任務就獎勵一根黃瓜。將給一只猴子的黃瓜替換成更美味的葡萄后，另一只猴子變的十分狂亂起來，并拿嫌棄的黃瓜砸向訓練人員。除了掩蓋經濟不平等情況這個弊端外，將GDP作為經濟晴雨表還存在其他問題。

GDP是美國在20世紀30年代提出的，屬于制造業時代的產物，適用于統計物質生產，卻不適合衡量在現代經濟中處于主導地位的各種服務。GDP如何衡量精神健康護理的質量，如何衡量社區周圍的日托中心和公園的存在價值?即便是實際發明GDP的白俄羅斯經濟學家也不喜歡將軍備和金融投機歸入到GDP統計中。他說，總之，永遠不要將GDP與民生混為一談。這意味著我們需要尋找其他方法來衡量經濟增長的成就。但是在大多數情況下，我們只信奉單一的衡量方法(即GDP)，雖然它提供信息的有限。

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