Citi 'Shadow Unemployment Number' Has Interest Rate Implications

As charges that government unemployment numbers were manipulated leading into the 2012 presidential election were made, and a continual cry that the unemployment numbers don’t accurately reflect those who simply stopped looking for a job, a new report from Citi investigates claims that the rapid decline in the unemployment rate overlooks substantial remaining slack in the U.S. labor market.

“The U.S. workforce continues to recuperate from the financial crisis however the speed of recovery is up for debate,” the Citi report noted. “We define a shadow unemployment rate due to certain types of underemployed workers who are not counted as part of the official unemployment...