This story makes me chuckle a little. We are in a storm of worker scarcity, and you are writing a story about unemployment being high.

Saying that official measures underestimate unemployment is wrong. The methodologies for calculating those official rates are published, they accurately report what they measure. What claims someone might make based on those measures is subject to scrutiny.

Same with ShadowStats.

The unemployment and economics stats are very accurate (as related to what they measure), and the economy is if not booming is growing as measure by GDP. The problem is people attribute more to the stats than the stats represent. I would not say people are in denial, I think people just don't understand what the stats really are telling us. Most of the stats aren't all that useful. GDP, CPI, U3 or whatever. The trends are more important than the actual values. More important than the trends are what is behind the trends. If unemployment is going down, why, deaths, hiring, retiring, population declines, etc.