If there's a different metric go ahead and suggest one. I know you're trying to bait a comment with the BLS reference. It used to be commonplace to observe that GDP is actually a very bad way to measure a country's performance, because it skips over things like income inequality or upward mobility. USSR had great GDP numbers, actually, despite the propaganda in the west at the time. Unfortunately everyone was miserable and, well, the rest is history.

I'd consider it a fake number in that people use it to mean something other than just being a number.

like, describing GDP as "how rich is your country or state" which I've seen people use to argue that canada and germany are poorer than Mississippi.