Shadowstats primarily focuses on inflation, but also keeps track of the money supply, unemployment and GDP by utilizing methodologies abandoned by previous administrations from the Clinton era to the Great Depression.
[3] John S. Greenlees and Robert B. McClelland, staff economists at the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, wrote a paper to address CPI misconceptions, such as those of Williams.
[4] Williams points out that under President Lyndon B. Johnson, the U-3 unemployment rate series was created, which excludes people who stopped looking for work for more than a year ago as well as part-time workers who are seeking full-time employment.
On July 24, 2008, Williams testified before the United States House Committee on Financial Services on the "Implications of a Weaker Dollar for Oil Prices and the U.S.
"[7] Economist and former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy Paul Craig Roberts has cited John Williams' estimates in a review of unemployment rates in 2013.
[10][11] A number of economists and finance experts have claimed that the Shadowstats CPI is conceptually wrong and that their usage leads to easily disproven and absurd conclusions.