It is interesting what the New Economics Foundation (NEF) reported as the real indicators of a country’s economic well-being, as opposed to looking at GDP, which Winnie Byanyima, executive director of Oxfam International, believes hides “the poverty within.”
The GDP doesn’t tell you everything, NEF says, especially whether a country is going the right direction or not. If you, my dear readers, would answer the question “What is the right direction for the Philippine economy?” then most of you might consider the practical indicators like: happy and healthy people, equitable society, and healthy environment. That wouldn’t be too far from what NEF is saying.
The NEF designed these measures incorporating more of the “social science mindset” rather than the traditional perception about economics as “hard, mathematical science.” Let’s take the first indicator: Good jobs. Looking at statistics on how many people have jobs doesn’t tell us much. We need to consider how much of the employed population are happy with their jobs, or can afford to live decently, or don’t have job security (next month they might drop off the stats). This is the real indicator of well-being, not just the number of employed people.
The second indicator of a healthy economy, according to the NEF, is well-being. This pertains to people’s satisfaction about their lives, which would show the policy-makers what people truly care about and what they (the lawmakers) should be working on and prioritizing.
The third indicator is environment. This involves looking at our lifestyle, checking our carbon footprints and making sure these are monitored such that dangerous levels are avoided. When you measure this, you are actually measuring a person’s (or an organization’s) level of responsibility for the Earth and its inhabitants.
The fourth indicator of economic well-being is fairness, which simply means that inequality, in all its forms but specifically economic inequality, affects society in a negative way. Finally, the last measure of economic health is health. The NEF talks about interventions (treatment and prevention) to ensure that “avoidable deaths” are avoided. For developed countries, this is easy enough to achieve. In a country like the Philippines, however, one only needs to look at the number of deaths that need not have happened and one would know how we are faring as a country as far as this indicator is concerned.
The experts can release figures of growth like the GDP to indicate whether the Philippine economy is healthy or not, but it may be good to look outside of that box and also consider looking at the five indicators that the NEF is suggesting. This way, we will have a clearer, wider picture of where our economy really stands so that the persons in authority can create reforms, policies and programs that are truly relevant.