Five Reasons for Abandoning Traditional Economic Performance Indicators:

1.  Population growth tells us nothing directly about the changing prosperity of residents;
2. Employment growth does not consider the quality of jobs and ignores the role of capital income;
3. The unemployment rate ignores those who drop out of the labor force or migrate during economic downturns (a particularly big issue for rural areas);
4. GDP ignores the depreciation and degradation of our productive capital; and
5. GDP ignores most intangible and non-market costs and benefits.