poverty on the rise

Over one million more people in America fell into poverty last year, reports the Census Bureau. A Department of Commerce official said "The poverty rate seems to be the last lonely lagging indicator of the business cycle." I think he's wrong -- calling this a lagging indicator implies the poverty rate will improve at some point in the business cycle.

I'm not so sure; I think this is a new permanent reality, caused by the de facto Administration's bizarro-world Robin Hood approach to tax breaks and subsidies for the wealthy, plus the ongoing relocation of jobs to cheaper places outside the USA and the general downward pressure on wages here. The reality is even worse than the statistics; the Census Bureau's own alternative numbers demonstrate that we significantly UNDERSTATE the true poverty rate in the US.

The GOP's America -- a land of increasing economic disparity, and poverty amid plenty.