A report by Steve Hanke, an economist from John Hopkins University in Baltimore, United States, has ranked Nigeria the 6th miserable country in the world.
According to the report, Venezuela was listed as the most miserable country in the world, saying: “Venezuela holds the inglorious title of the most miserable country in the world in 2018, as it did in 2017, 2016, and 2015.”
Argentina holds the No. 2 spot after yet another peso crisis. Since its founding, Argentina has been burdened with numerous economic crises. Most can be laid at the feet of domestic mismanagement and currency problems (read: currency collapses).
Iran took third in the ranking while Brazil made it to the fourth position. Turkey took fifth position as the giant of Africa, Nigeria, emerged sixth.
The Misery Index was calculated using economic indices, including unemployment, inflation and bank lending rates.
For Nigeria, unemployment rate was the major contributing factor to its miserable state.
Reacting to the recent report, the main opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), yesterday described Steve Hanke’s report as a vindication of its position all this while, adding that the country has sunk into a new low since President Muhammadu Buhari assumed power in 2015.
The table below contains Misery Index rankings for the 95 nations that report relevant data on a timely basis. For consistency and comparability, and with few exceptions, data were retrieved from the Economist Intelligence Unit.
Methodology
Misery Index is the sum of the unemployment, inflation and bank lending rates, minus the percentage change in real GDP per capita. Higher readings on the first three elements are “bad” and make people more miserable. These are offset by a “good” (GDP per capita growth), which is subtracted from the sum of the “bads.” A higher Misery Index score reflects a higher level of “misery,” and it’s a simple enough metric that a busy president, without time for extensive economic briefings, can understand at a glance.
