Shadowstats is pretty much bullshit. See:

http://www.economonitor.com/dolanecon/2015/03/31/deconstruct...

http://www.economonitor.com/dolanecon/2015/06/15/deconstruct...

I upvoted you because I want my reply to get visibility.

I am guessing your claim is something like "If you count long-term discouraged workers, and U-6 only counts short-term discouraged workers, it has not actually recovered"? (Note that it's fairly common to downvote people on HN who aren't clear what they mean, whether or not what they mean would be acceptable to the hivemind.)

If so, I'm curious what this website's methodology for calculating long-term discouraged workers is - and in particular whether that includes people who have been "discouraged" by being in jail, or people who have trouble finding a job because of a previous criminal conviction. (I'm also curious whether this includes people who have retired young, are on trust funds and never really wanted a job in the first place, etc.)

'lukasb linked a very interesting blog post, reviewing a book that claims that a huge explanatory factor for unemployment is mass incarceration. So any useful analysis of the causes of non-receding unemployment needs to take this potential factor into account; it may well be the case that ending mass incarceration and creating a federal fair-chance law will cause the "ShadowStats" number to rapidly drop back to matching U-6. I don't see any mention of this factor on that website.

I downvoted the comment because you were lazy and just barfed up a link to $DEITY only knows where with no further commentary. The fact that your source is, how to put this politely, frequently demonstrable bullshit is secondary.

> But I fully expect to be down-voted out of reality

And I obliged.

Next time, leave the meta-comments out.