how about a cultural health index instead of Dow Jones Industrials?

Pretty much after every radio news broadcast, on every media web site, and in the daily papers, you can easily find the statistics for the Dow Jones Industials. Why would most people care so much about this to check it every day? Isn't this actually an index for the more elites in society? Shouldn't there be an index of the health of our society that is applicable to the average American? How about some combination of the percentage of the population with health care, the unemployment rate, median wage, and some kind of health index? That way we could see at a glance something that actually applies to all of us.