Employment statistics tell us what proportion of people have jobs. They don\u2019t tell us what proportion of those with jobs are paid too little to afford a decent standard of living, or worry about whether they\u2019ll still have work next month.<\/p>\n
According to UK government figures, 94% of people were in work in 2014 \u2013 up nearly two percentage points in four years. However, the NEF calculated that only 61% were in secure jobs paying a living wage \u2013 down a similar amount in the same period.<\/p>\n
2. Wellbeing<\/strong><\/p>\n A growing economy is not an end in itself \u2013 it\u2019s a means to improving people\u2019s lives. Few would disagree that the ultimate aim of public policy is wellbeing; we care about GDP because we assume it means more wellbeing. So why not also measure wellbeing directly?<\/p>\n The validity of research into measuring wellbeing, by asking people about their life satisfaction, is now widely accepted. Such measures capture a range of things that people care about and that policies can influence \u2013 from income and health to housing and social connections.<\/p>\n Some governments do measure life satisfaction, including the UK (it increased from 7.4 to 7.6, on a scale of 0-10, in the four years to 2014). However, it remains at the margins of policymaking.<\/p>\n 3. Environment<\/strong><\/p>\n The NEF propose a national indicator of lifestyle-related carbon emissions, relative to an allocation calculated from global targets for avoiding dangerous levels of climate change.<\/p>\n In four years, the UK\u2019s position deteriorated from using 91% of its allocation to 98%. As climate is a global problem, this indicator is effectively a measure of responsible global citizenship.<\/p>\n 4) Fairness<\/strong><\/p>\n Research increasingly shows that high income inequality has negative social consequences, while casting doubt on the idea that it incentivises hard work.<\/p>\n Comparing the average incomes of the top and bottom 10%, inequality in the UK has been worsening by an average of 0.8% a year for the last four years.<\/p>\n 5) Health<\/strong><\/p>\n The NEF proposes \u201cavoidable deaths\u201d as a simple, easily-understandable measure that captures the quality of health interventions \u2013 not only treatment, but also prevention.<\/p>\n Here, the UK shows a positive trend, but with plenty of room for further improvement \u2013 the latest figures suggest 23% of deaths need not have happened.<\/p>\n The NEF designed these measures with the United Kingdom in mind, working with the UK\u2019s Office of National Statistics. But they are, in principle, just as meaningful for other countries.<\/p>\n The shortcomings of GDP, as a measure of what we want from an economy, are not a new discovery. The NEF and others have been making the case for years. But while various proposals for alternatives have engaged the interest of policymakers and technocrats, they have not yet taken hold among politicians.<\/p>\n That\u2019s understandable: any politician who suggests new ways to judge their performance is also creating new ways to fail, and many policies that will pay long-term dividends on these indicators will also impose short-term costs.<\/p>\n More broadly, there remains a reluctance to move away from viewing economics as a hard, mathematical science, and accept the need to incorporate more of a social science mindset. In effect, we need another value shift in economics, comparable to those that shaped the last century \u2013 Kenyesianism and neoliberalism.<\/p>\n However, while the problems with the current economic system are increasingly widely appreciated, we still lack a compelling, coherent, simple alternative narrative. I hope these indicators can help that narrative to develop.<\/p>\n By Stewart Wallis, a former Executive Director of the New Economics Foundation, and business manager and advocate for transition to a new economic system.<\/em><\/p>\n This article appears on The World Economic Forum<\/a> as part of a Beyond GDP series<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n South Africa\u2019s economy sinks to third largest in Africa<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n How much money South Africa contributes to the global economy<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n![\"WEF\"](\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/WEF-e1465568523742.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\nMore on economics<\/h3>\n