If economists think the economy is doing well, then they are tracking the wrong numbers

When I hear newscasters tell us the economic indicators are up and the economy is doing well, my reaction is, "Whose economy are they talking about?"  The economy may be working well for banks, but for many people it's a disaster and getting worse.

Here are some things I think are missing from what the official economists track:

• unrecovered negative externalities - pollution, environmental degradation, carbon footprint, etc.
• income distribution - measures such as
• gap between highest and lowest paid employees in organizations;  
• various stats on the amount and percentage of wealth held by people in various points across the scale from lowest to highest wealth;  
• number of homeless per billionaire; 
• other miscellaneous numbers (here are some examples of the kinds of things I mean, though once a good list is drawn up, it can be determined which metrics most consistently reflect economic health:
• number of personal bankruptcies and their causes
• indicators of mental health of the population (if the economy is working right, then people should be reasonably content and not subject to mental health problems)
• collective cost of health care/health indicators

You get the idea.  But since this basically my intuitive sense of things (with unconscious influences from various sources).  So I looked to see what others have done on this.  Here are some examples from an untitled document at McGregor Consultants with some alternatives to the GDP:

First, the document looks at what's missing in the GDP (Gross Domestic Product).  Then it offers some alternative systems.  Here are a couple of examples.

"A. Fordham Index of Social Health (FISH)
Measures 16 socio-economic indicators: 1. infant mortality
2. child abuse
3. child poverty
4. teen suicide
5. drug abuse
6. high school drop-outs
7. average weekly earnings
8. unemployment
9. health insurance coverage
10. poverty among elderly
11. health insurance for elderly 12. highway deaths due to alcohol 13. homicides
14. food stamp distribution
15. housing
16. income inequality
Since 1973, the FISH index has declined as the GDP increased in the US.
In Canada, the FISH index has stayed constant since 1985 as the GDP increased."

Rather than go through each index (the link above does that) I'll just offer you the list at the bottom  the linked document.  [When I checked out the links they were all squirrelly.  I'm guessing the original document I found on the McGregor site was pretty old and the links are either wrong or out of date.  But you get the general idea.  I've added new links where I could find something that looked worthwhile.)

"ALTERNATIVES TO THE GDP WEB SITESFORDHAM INDEX OF SOCIAL HEALTH FISH (This one seems to have migrated to Vassar and lost the F)GENUINE PROGRESS INDICATOR GPIUNITED NATIONS HUMAN DEVELOPMENT INDEX UNHDI
GROSS SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT PRODUCT GSDP  (this link is all about sustainability measures, but not exactly an index called GSDP) GROSS ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT INDEX GESDI"