Everyman Economics: Why Growth Requires Measuring More than GDP

Photo-Illustration by TIME (Source Image: Michael M. Santiago—Getty Images)Antara Haldar is an associate professor at the University of Cambridge and the author of Everyman: The Untold Story of Economics. Sep 5, 2026 10:00 AM UTCIn its 250th year, America finds itself confronting an age-old question with new urgency: what, exactly, counts as progress? 1776 was a hinge year for the modern world. Adam Smith published The Wealth of Nations, America adopted the Declaration of Independence, and Matthew Boulton and James Watt commercialized the steam engine—three developments that unleashed an age of capitalism, bringing unprecedented growth and unprecedented inequality.And while growth and inequality are often treated as separate stories, fetishized respectively by the right and the left, corporate America and labor unions, and Wall Street and Main Street, this November’s midterm elections will put them on a collision course. But they have always gone hand in hand, their fates inextricably intertwined.America’s triumphs are real. The United States is still the world’s largest economy. It remains a global engine of innovation. Its stock market is booming thanks to artificial intelligence...