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 share of poor Americans in deep poverty has climbed slowly but steadily over the last three decades. But since 2000, the number of severely poor has grown "more than any other segment of the population," according to a recent study in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. At a time when corporate profits are at forty-year high and CEOs are paid over 260 times more than the average worker, it's rather startling to read that the fastest growing segment of the population is that composed of households earning less than half the federal poverty line. Also sobering are these facts: One in three Americans will experience a full year of extreme poverty at some point in his or her adult life, according to long-term research by Mark Rank, a professor of social welfare at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. An estimated 58 percent of Americans between the ages of 20 and 75 will spend at least a year in poverty, Rank said. Two of three will use a public assistance program between ages 20 and 65, and 40 percent will do so for five years or more.