The seasonally-adjusted SGS Alternate Unemployment Rate reflects current unemployment reporting methodology adjusted for SGS-estimated long-term discouraged workers, who were defined out of official existence in 1994. That estimate is added to the BLS estimate of U-6 unemployment, which includes short-term discouraged workers.
The U-3 unemployment rate is the monthly headline number. The U-6 unemployment rate is the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) broadest unemployment measure, including short-term discouraged and other marginally-attached workers as well as those forced to work part-time because they cannot find full-time employment.Unemployment Data Series
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Every month new government statistics come out, and every month they somehow manage to indicate a nonexistent recovery.
Shadowstats calculates an alternate, unmassaged number that reflects real unemnployment. It’s been either holding steady or going up during the entire period when government stats are showing “improvements.”
I don’t see any reason to give most government stats any credence whatsoever any longer. Any time they start to show anything that discomfits the regime, the regime changes the way they are calculated in order to achieve the results desired by the regime.
Definition: Regime – the unholy alliance between the Ruling Party and the Ruling Class.

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