John Edwards sent an email (PDF) to supporters today that made this claim:

While poverty is all around us, the first step in eradicating it is to shine a bright light on it. Here’s what we know: 36 million Americans live in poverty today, which is 13 million more than 30 years ago.

However, if you look at the Census poverty statistics that are the likely source of this data (lagged to 2003), you’ll see that Edwards is playing an obvious statistical trick. The percentage of the population in poverty in 2003 was 12.5%, virtually identical to the 11.1% in 1973 — the difference is that the US population increased from 208 million to 288 million over that time period. Is it frustrating that poverty hasn’t gone down? Of course. But there hasn’t been a dramatic increase in poverty, as Edwards implies.