From the "Compared to what?" file.

The headline is promising...

US poverty rate declines significantly

…and the lede...

The nation's poverty rate was 12.3 percent in 2006, down from 12.6 percent a year before, the Census Bureau reported Tuesday…

…but, as usual, the devil is in the details, and the details are a few paragraphs down...

The last significant decline in the poverty rate came in 2000, during the Clinton administration, when it went from 11.9 percent to 11.3 percent.

The poverty rate increased every year for the next four years, peaking at 12.7 percent in 2004.

So, if a year to year improvement of .003 is significant, the full percentage point that the poverty rate has risen under Bush could only be called, what, dramatic? Massive? Totally unsurprising, given the unrestrained class war he's waged on working Americans?

In a country pushing 400 million people, an extra one percent in poverty is a buncha group of folks, and it's hardly the whole story. The official standard for poverty is pretty deceptive. I know there are regional differences in the cost of living, but I don't think there's any city on the west coast where you can feed, house, cloth, transport and educate a family of four on $20,444 a year without a boost from food stamps, food banks, housing subsidies, child care subsidies, free school lunches and such. You know, poverty programs.

You can just about bet that that 20k job doesn't come with a family health care plan, either.

On the brighter side, John Edwards has a plan.