Why does the corporate media focus so much on GDP instead of more relevant...

P

Peter

New member
...statistics like income growth? I always hear this hype about GDP growth going positive for the next fiscal quarter, blah blah blah, but I hardly ever hear about wage growth and more importantly, inflation-adjusted wage growth, and also poverty statistics. This wouldn't bother me so much except the media is so enthusiastic about GDP numbers that you'd think that's all that mattered. They act as if we should be happy whenever the GDP is in the green, while real-world statistics don't correlate with GDP--when GDP goes up, real wages are flat. So why is this? Are they just trying to look for things that *appear to be* significant and hyping them for ratings, or do they push an agenda that promotes the status quo with an "everything's gonna be alright" attitude? Or is it just sheer ignorance on the media's part?
 
Economics is a difficult discipline for some to grasp and the media's job is first to get ratings and people keep interested. People who watch the news may not have a clue what inflation adjusted wage growth is and without presenting people like Paul Krugman to explain it they still may not get it. GDP is also the factor that most economists look at in a very broad generic sense as an indicator of financial health, its not the end all or be all nor is it the most accurate way to assess growth but it is one people commonly hear and encompasses broad range.
 
Economics is a difficult discipline for some to grasp and the media's job is first to get ratings and people keep interested. People who watch the news may not have a clue what inflation adjusted wage growth is and without presenting people like Paul Krugman to explain it they still may not get it. GDP is also the factor that most economists look at in a very broad generic sense as an indicator of financial health, its not the end all or be all nor is it the most accurate way to assess growth but it is one people commonly hear and encompasses broad range.
 
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