The most recent inflation and unemployment data tell us that economist Arthur Okun’s famous “Misery Index” is again riding high, leaving most of us a little lower in the saddle.

The index is based on the percentages found in the Consumer Price Index and the unemployment rate. Added together, the two measures hit 12.2 for May, following 11.9 and 12.1 for March and April. Now, it seems the Federal Reserve is attempting to quench the flames of inflation by allowing the unemployment rate to head north. If successful, one form of misery will be exchanged for another. Okun invented the index in the 1970s after serving in the Lyndon Johnson White House and later observing the stagflation that followed President Richard Nixon’s 1971 decision to sever the linkage between the dollar and gold. Since first becoming a popular measure of well-being, improvements or reversals in the index have come to be seen as an indicator of a president’s political prospects.