Taiwan’s ranking revealed! The ranking of the world's most painful economies is released. "This country" is really miserable.

The ranking of the world's most miserable and least miserable economies has been released, and Taiwan's ranking has also been exposed! According to the latest 2025 "Hanke Annual Misery Index", among 178 economies in the world, Venezuela topped the list of the most miserable economies with a score of 556.5, while Taiwan ranked 178th with a score of 2.1, becoming the world's "least miserable" economy and receiving this ranking for the second consecutive year.

The financial visualization website "Visual Capitalist" quoted Steve, an economics professor at Johns Hopkins University in the United States. The annual misery index compiled by Steve Hanke points out that to measure whether an economy is in trouble, one cannot just look at the economic growth rate, but must also consider factors such as inflation, unemployment and borrowing costs.

This index is derived from the concept proposed by American economist Arthur Okun. Hank further incorporates bank loan interest rates and per capita real GDP growth rate. The calculation method is the inflation rate plus twice the unemployment rate, plus bank loan interest rates, and finally subtracts per capita real GDP growth rate. The higher the index, the greater the pressure on the economy.

The ranking shows that the top five most painful economies in the world are Venezuela, Sudan, Turkey, Iran and Argentina. Among them, Venezuela’s index is as high as 556.5 points, much higher than the second-placed Sudan’s 225.4 points. The main pressure comes from inflation; Turkey ranks third with 101 points, and bank loan interest rates are the biggest drag factor.

In comparison, the least painful economies in the world are Taiwan, Singapore, Thailand, Ireland and Ivory Coast, with indices of approximately 2.1, 2.6, 3.1, 5.3 and 6.3 points respectively. Regarding other Asian economies, Japan ranked 172nd with 7.2 points, China ranked 164th with 8.7 points, and South Korea ranked 155th with 11 points.

Hank analyzed that the key to Taiwan becoming the least painful economy in the world for two consecutive years is that the per capita real GDP growth rate will reach 9.2% in 2025, mainly due to the strong global demand for semiconductors and artificial intelligence hardware. In addition, Taiwan's unemployment rate is 3.3%, the inflation rate is 1.3%, and bank loan interest rates are about 3.3%, keeping the overall pain index at a low level.

It is worth noting that among the 178 economies, the greatest economic pressure for 105 economies comes from bank loan interest rates, 54 from the unemployment rate, and 19 from inflation. Even if the pain index is low, it does not mean there is no financial stress at all. This index mainly measures the overall economic conditions and does not directly reflect people's happiness, life satisfaction or overall living standards.