By John Cranford, CQ Columnist

It’s been decades since Jimmy Carter used the famed “misery index” to defeat President Gerald R. Ford in 1976, or since Ronald Reagan turned this measure of economic misfortune back against Carter in his successful campaign for the White House four years later.

In the intervening years, at least judging from this almost-too-cute gauge, America has become a much less miserable place. That may be changing, however, as the misery index has essentially reached its highest level since 1994.

Monthly Misery Index: Click Here to View

Before examining whether it might be used as a political cudgel this year, a refresher course is in order. This concept of a simple formula to assess general economic well-being is credited to the late Arthur Okun. A former Yale professor and later Brookings Institution scholar, Okun served as chairman of the president’s Council of Economic Advisers at the conclusion of Lyndon B. Johnson’s administration. He reasoned that by adding together the jobless rate and the inflation rate, it was possible to get a sense of just how hard day-to-day life is for the average person in society.

Thus was born what Okun dubbed the “discomfort index.” In 1976, with unemployment just below 8 percent for much of the year and consumer price inflation averaging almost 6 percent, this formula yielded an index reading of roughly 14, which was relatively high for post-World War II United States. Carter seized on it to explain to voters why they were unhappy.

Unfortunately for him, while unemployment abated a bit during his time in office, inflation soared. By January 1980, what Reagan was now calling the misery index had crept above 20, and by summer it reached 21.9 — that’s the highest it’s been in at least 60 years. The Iranian hostage crisis may have hurt Carter’s re-election prospects, but he was also hoisted on his own economic petard.

The misery index was a useful political concept in that period, principally because inflation had been particularly severe for nine years, beginning in early 1973. The year-over-year increase in the Consumer Price Index (CPI ) exceeded 5 percent every month. Inflation crested in early 1980 above 14 percent, and over that period it averaged 9 percent. Naturally, the misery index stayed elevated.

But we’ve seen nothing like that sort of inflation in a generation. Annual price increases have averaged 3 percent for the past 20 years, and the inflation rate hasn’t been 5 percent or higher except for 15 scattered months from early 1989 to early 1991.

That remains true today. Soaring gasoline and food costs have caused the inflation rate to climb, but it still hasn’t come close to the level that once generated calls for price controls and other extraordinary measures.

The jobless rate has been a little more variable over the years, and life less comfortable as a result. For eight years, spanning the first part of the 1980s, unemployment was 6 percent or higher and rose to almost 11 percent at the end of the 1981-82 recession. Also, a four-year run of 6 percent-plus unemployment infected the early 1990s, although the jobless rate never got as high as 8 percent during that time.

Yet, despite steep job losses stemming from the 2001 recession, we’ve suffered only eight months of even marginally high unemployment since 1994, and none in the past four years. And the misery index fell off the radar for a very long time. Until recently, it had registered above 9 in only three months out of the past 14 years.

So, Is Misery Back?

The pattern was altered late last year. With inflation creeping above 4 percent since November and unemployment slowly rising past 5 percent, the misery index has topped 9 in four of the past five months. It may do so again when the April CPI is reported this week.