Letter: Census sugarcoats poverty figures

Thursday, Sept. 6, 2007 | 1:06 a.m.

Suppose you have moved into a very nice house and have a luxury car in the garage. You really wanted these items, but they have made you so cash strapped you cannot afford insurance.

Now the unthinkable happens. Fire ravages the house, burning everything you own , including the automobile. You have lost everything. You have been beaten down.

The next couple of years are no picnic either. You're homeless and have to spend most of your waking days just trying to survive.

But something interesting happens. Five years after you've lost it all, someone buys a cheap tent and gives it to you so at least you don't have to sleep unprotected outdoors.

Question: Are you better off? If you believe the Census Bureau's Current Population Survey , you are. It has used the same logic to issue a news release stating that the poverty rate in America is going down. In comparing last year's rate to this year's, it reports that the poverty rate fell 0.3 percent .

However, nowhere does it address the fact that in previous years the poverty rate grew rapidly , in large part because of economic mismanagement and favoritism by the current administration.

These policies "burned the houses" of millions of families, putting them in or deeper in the poverty roll. Now, years later, the "cheap tent" is heralded as a reduction of the trend. It's just another way to attempt to make bad numbers look good. Maybe it's giving the White House a template for its surge report in September.