McClatchy reports today on a study of 2005 census figures which found that "the number of severely poor Americans grew by 26 percent from 2000 to 2005. That's 56 percent faster than the overall poverty population grew in the same period." The McClathy article also draws on other studies to underline its point - that severe poverty, not just poverty, is growing and growing at an alarming rate.

The American Prospect's Harold Myerson has a op-ed piece in that publication today, Can Free Trade Be a Fair Deal?. In the op-ed, he links American middle class wage stagnation to globalization, specifically, to global wage convergence. The one policy proposal he offers seems paradoxical. For what would the global minimum wage policy he advocates do but hasten global wage convergence? At the same time, he rejects the proposals offered by former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin and his fellow Hamiltonians at Brookings

Glenn Hubbard, former head of the President's Counicl of Economic Advisors, said some ridiculous things on NPR's marketplace yesterday about long-term fiscal problems and the President's budget. Among the many opinions passed as facts, this one merits the most attention: The president's budget poses a challenging question: Can we restore fiscal discipline without damaging economic growth with higher taxes?...The answer is yes.

A comment on testimony given to the Senate Budget Committee by Jason Furman, the leader of the center-left Hamilton Project and a scholar at the CBPP. The testimony concerns the "fiscal gap," the hot new phrase for what's typically called the long-term structural imbalance in the federal budget. His testimony is interesting and largely constructive. But it's more notable for its demonstration of budget wonkery's biggest blind spot: health care economics. Furman says rising health care costs are primarily responsible for the "fiscal gap." Yet all he says on the overall issue is this: