No, this is not a joke, but one of the suggestions of the very serious and very official report that the French President Sarkozy commissioned to the Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz. Indeed, according to the figures presented by the headed by Stiglitz Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress, the traditional disposable income measure, which estimates income per capita in France to be only 66% of income in the US, is inadequate.
If, in addition, government-provided services, housework and leisure are accounted for, one ends up with a relative income level of 87%. Those suggestions make much more clear the purpose of the report, which obviously is to flater France for some hypothetical and invisible for established statistic measures achievements.
