Nigeria’s high unemployment rate is seen as the major factor contributing to its miserable state and ranking it among the top miserable countries in the world, according to a report by Steve Hanke, an economist from John Hopkins University in Baltimore, United States.
The 2018 misery index showed that Nigeria emerged the sixth position out of 95 countries scoring 43.0 that were analyzed while the country’s position in 2017 remained unchanged.
In the sphere of economics, misery tends to flow from high inflation, steep borrowing costs and unemployment. The most surefire way to mitigate that misery is economic growth.
Hanke ‘s modified Misery Index is the sum of 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.
“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,” Steve Hanke said.
The top five countries above Nigeria in the list of world’s miserable countries are; Venezuela, Argentina, Iran, Brazil, and Turkey; while the least countries in the ranking include Thailand, Hungary, Japan, Austria, and China.
