It is still too early to start celebrating increases in the living standards of every Turk, but the latest figures clearly show less misery and despair at an aggregate level.Measures of poverty known as misery indices have declined to the lowest levels in decades, according to a report issued yesterday by investment bank Morgan Stanley. The first misery index was developed by
In Turkey's case, inflation dropped from an average of 77.5 percent in the 1990s to single-digits; coupled with a gradual rise in the labor market, the misery index has shown a sustained improvement in the post-crisis period.
An alternative, more comprehensive misery index better assesses the effectiveness of economic policies in improving living standards. The alternative version consists of public-sector borrowing requirement, interest rates and output growth along with inflation and jobless rates, and presents a more striking improvement. Most of this correction is due to fiscal consolidation, disinflation and interest-rate compression, but even the unemployment rate, after increasing from 5.5 percent in 2000 to the post-crisis peak of 12.3 percent, declined to 10.3 percent last year.
The most recent figures show a number of buoyant signs, including robust employment growth in all sectors except agriculture. The total number of people with jobs grew by 1.2 percent year-on-year to 22 million last year, but non-farm employment surged by 12.0 percent, from 65.2 percent of total employment in 2004 to 70.5 percent last year.