HappySqurriel on 05 October 2012
While you can argue over which methodology is correct, I think shadowstats is a much more "natural" unemployment statistics; because it includes everyone people would typically consider unemployed.
The interesting difference between the official statistics and shadowstats statistics is that the official statistics have been declining since (roughly) 2010 while the shadowstats alternative has been growing by (essentially) the same amount. The reason for this is that, while the economy has been creating jobs, there have not been enough jobs created to cover population growth (250,000/month IIRC) and people who give up on finding a job are not considered unemployed by the official statistics.
