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I suspect you're exaggerating at least a tiny bit, since the difference between their unemployment rate and the official figure is not constant: theirs has been trending up over the past 4 years, while the official figures are going down.

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As an example, if you look closely at the alternative unemployment chart that rayiner linked to [0] you can see that the shadowstats line (blue) exactly matches the U6 line (grey) down to the very last wiggle. Until 2010, that is, when unemployment started going down and shadowstats needed to keep people shelling out $175 a year.

[0] http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/unemployment-chart...

It looks like they may have added some growing possibly linear function to the unemployment rate instead of a constant starting in 2009. All the better to push their fear mongering agenda/sales tactic I guess.

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