The debate has hinged on the wobbly GDP while it's lesser known twin GDI is screaming red. The US government uses two main measures of economic growth, GDP and GDI. Since the pandemic, they have diverged massively with GDI lagging by about 240 billion per year. That is a lot of lost activity for conceptually equal. More important, if GDI is the true number, it implies economic growth could be overstated by almost 3%.