THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED FOR JOHN MCCAIN, THE POOR WOULD SUFFER: And they were right! US poverty on track to post record gain in 2009. “The number of people in the U.S. who are in poverty is on track for a record increase on President Barack Obama’s watch, with the ranks of working-age poor approaching 1960s levels that led to the national war on poverty. Census figures for 2009 — the recession-ravaged first year of the Democrat’s presidency — are to be released in the coming week, and demographers expect grim findings.”

UPDATE: Chuck Simmins emails:

Having written about the Census Bureau’s annual Poverty in America report for many years, I can make a few predictions.

While the increase in poverty for all races will be noted in news reports, little or no mention will be made of the record or near record lows in the Bush years.

Women reached record parity in wages with men during the Bush years. If reports about the recession layoffs hitting white males hardest are correct, it is entirely possible that wage parity will hit a new record. Fewer men working means working women will have a larger proportion of the wage earning population.

Much will be made of the numbers of people without health insurance. That said, this is a number that has only been tracked for about 12 years. We have no clear picture of what historic values were. It is entirely possible that the numbers from the Clinton bubble era are an extreme outlier and historically irrelevant.

Indeed.