Today has been a slow day in an already slow month in fiscal policy in Washington, DC, but the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) issued a very helpful report leading up to the release of poverty, income, and health insurance data from the U.S. Census Bureau next Tuesday. The report is a guide to what to look for in the Census release and how to assess whether economic growth is reaching low- and middle-income families. CBPP thinks these data could show some pretty unprecedented trends: The 2007 figures may well show something unprecedented. For the first time on record, poverty and the median income of working-age households may be worse at the end of a multi-year economic expansion than they were at the bottom of the previous recession. That would be an unparalleled and troubling sign of the limits of recent economic growth. WHAT TO WATCH FOR IN THE NEW CENSUS INCOME AND POVERTY NUMBERS