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Four years into an economic recovery, the number of people living in poverty has finally stopped climbing.

Do I need to read beyond the first sentence?

As poor people immigrate to the USA in large numbers, of course the number "living in poverty" has increased. But note that often the poverty stricken dependents of those immigrants still live in the old country. And it is the number of dependents that is a key factor in labeling one as "living in poverty".

A fair and balanced news article would also report that the number of upwardly mobile people who were formerly poverty sticken is rapidly increasing. The number of homeowners reaches new records every year among the demographic groups associated with poverty. (Blacks, Hispanics, single parents, single women, etc.)

A fair and balanced article would also report that it is precisely government intervention in the free market place that causes people to make the choices that they do.

When people have a choice between buying a house and paying a mortgage or buying health care, they consciously decide that buying a house is a wise choice and buying health care is a bad choice.

Housing has been a good choice because
-Interest rates were relatively low
-Immigration has created a high demand for housing which drove up the price (until the anti (illegal) immigrant rhetoric killed the real estate market.
-There is no tax on capital gains when the profit from the sale of one house to an immigrant is used to buy an even more expensive house, which is more expensive due to the trickle up demand.

Health Insurance is not a good choice.
-The taxpayer suckers will always pay for medical care. To sho the illogic of these suckers, some want to cut off illegals from this welfare but seem totally content with paying for citizens and legals. Well, as any pro-lifer knows, a baby in the womb is separate from the mother and is thus entitled to well baby care.
-The majority of the health insurance dollar does not go to doctors, nurses and other health care providers. It goes to medical malpractice insurance and all the overhead imposed on society by a busybody congress. For example, both ADA and HIPPA have been extremely expensive to society. At least ADA has actually benefitted a few disabled people, albeit at a high cost to the rest of us, and with a high cost of abuse of ADA by malingerers claiming they are disabled.

In contrast, HIPPA has cost the BlueCross/BlueShield family BILLIONS of dollars.
It has cost Aetna and the privates BILLIONS.
It has cost the HMOs BILLIONS..
It has cost Federal, state and local health Departments (taxpayers) BILLIONS..
It has cost Hospitals, nursing homes, clinics, doctors and other providers BILLIONS..
It has cost employers BILLIONS..

I have an open offer for just one person to step forward and say that his health is better due to HIPPA. The fact is that it has not improved the health of a single person for all the many BILLIONS of dollars spent.

But is has provided employment for a lot of us consultants, both here and in Bangalore.

Excellent comments.

As you point out:

"A fair and balanced news article would also report that the number of upwardly mobile people who were formerly poverty stricken is rapidly increasing."

I recall reading some years ago that five years from when such a survey is done that around 40% of people living in poverty have moved up and are no longer in poverty. The American experience for the vast majority of people is that with hard work, anyone can live fairly well, even on modest incomes. Many of those in poverty (as you point out) are immigrants that send money home to even poorer family members.

On medical insurance, I remember when I was a poor college student, and had no health insurance for years.

On the subject of health insurance. Have you read Milton Friedman's solution to health care?

http://www.hooverdigest.org/013/friedman.html