Alternative CPI and Unemployment Rate Stats

Have you ever wondered why the CPI, GDP and employment numbers run counter to your personal and business experiences? The problem lies in biased and often-manipulated government reporting.

The 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.

We offer an exposé of the problems within the reporting system, and an assessment of underlying economic reality, through two basic services:

Subscription includes access to all back issues
and SGS Alternate Data Series.

"John Williams' Shadow Government Statistics" is an electronic newsletter service that exposes and analyzes flaws in current U.S. government economic data and reporting, as well as in certain private-sector numbers, and provides an assessment of underlying economic and financial conditions, net of financial-market and political hype.

• The newsletter service includes frequent postings of communications related to regular economic and financial market reporting and to special developments in those areas, averaging more than one posting per week. A full, formal newsletter is published generally eight or more times per year. It is supported regularly by interim "Flash Updates" and "Alerts," which cover, and keep current, key economic reports and issues, and which address unusual developments. The service is supplemented by occasional Special Issues. The service also continues to evolve, based upon subscriber needs and input, with increasing reliance on "Flash Updates" and "Alerts" recently in response to unusual financial-market and economic conditions. (See "Newsletter Coverage" below for the publication's regular scope of coverage.)