Why Don't Presidential Candidates Talk About Rising Poverty In U.S.?

 Census figures for 2011 are expected to show the poverty rate jumping to its highest level since the 1960s, the Free Press says in an editorial.

That basically means the anti-poverty public policy of the last 50 years -- the war on poverty and the expansion of the social safety net, the massive private-sector gains spurred by Ronald Reagan in the 1980s and Bill Clinton in the 1990s -- has been rendered ineffective by the meltdown of 2008 and the slow recovery.

The numbers will say the nation is at a 15.7% poverty rate, an unacceptably high number.