Andrew Yang Says We Should Replace GDP with an American Scorecard: Simon Kuznets Agrees
Simon Kuznets is undoubtedly the most influential economist of the 20th century, but hopefully not the 21st century. He is considered by many to be the father of GDP. He developed some of the first measures of national income, which eventually resulted in the creation of GDP as a measure of national economic success. He received a Nobel Prize in Economics for this work. However, Kuznets knew then what we know now — that any simplified measure of an economy will be abused and misused.
2020 Presidential Candidate Andrew Yang has made replacing GDP with an American Scorecard a central part of his human-centered campaign. It makes a lot of sense when you think about it. In an increasingly complex society, we are using a single measure of economic success that was developed before we landed on the moon, before we understood climate change, before we built out our interstate highway system, and before the Information Age. GDP doesn’t measure anything related to the health of a population, the national debt, access to clean water, the poverty rate, environmental degradation, or access to high-quality education. And, we are seeing that GDP can grow while more and more Americans get left behind.
Simon Kuznets said, “Distinctions must be kept in mind between quantity and quality of…
