Posted on: Saturday, August 28, 2004

EDITORIAL
Third year in a row, more live in poverty

President Bush's repeated assertion that things are getting better because of his tax-cut policies took another hit this week as census figures showed that the numbers of Americans living in poverty increased by 1.3 million in 2003.

The rise was more dramatic for children. There were 12.9 million living in poverty last year, or 17.6 percent of the under-18 population. That was an increase of about 800,000 from 2002.

The number of Americans living in poverty has risen in each of the first three years of the Bush presidency.

Tellingly, that number fell in the last seven years of President Clinton's eight years in office, after having risen in all four years of Bush's father's term.

On the good-news front, median household income rose at about the same rate as inflation last year after three years of relative declines, according to the report.

But the disparity in incomes between the rich and poor grew after having contracted in 2002. Pay did not keep pace with inflation in the South, already the nation's poorest region, in cities, or among immigrants.

The three-year increase in the number in poverty, coupled with the terrible loss of jobs in those same years and a lackluster recovery from recession to date, confirms that current economic policies are resulting in a transfer of wealth to the very rich from the middle class, some of whom are falling into poverty as the result.