As the two parties go to battle for the highest office of the land, it is curious to see if there is anything about which common ground can be found. Indeed there is: a genuine bi-partisan call for a New Federal Poverty measurement.

Democrats and Republicans seem to agree that the way we calculate poverty simply does not reflect reality. Today’s official poverty measuring stick, unchanged since the 1960s, is based upon the ability of Americans to buy food. Bipartisan critics are arguing that other expenses – housing, transportation and child care, to name three – need to be added in. According to the rule in place today, US poverty was hovering around 12.5% for the period 2006 to 2007. No national poverty number has been calculated applying the new formula.

But New York City recently applied the proposed rule to its population and found that poverty increased from 19% to 23% – that’s more than a 20% increase. Some of that bump up, by the way, can be attributed to out of pocket health costs for the elderly. The poverty rate for 2008, by the proposed rule, would reflect Americans coping with foreclosures, job losses, and high gas prices. George Bush will be back in Crawford, Texas when the 2008 numbers come out; he has said that his first order of business would be – in his words --  to “fill up the old coffers.” The prospect of Mr. Bush being reduced to poverty, by any measurement, well, that would be zero. But what Mr. Bush has made clear is that his brand of market economics promotes poverty.

A note on the media: now that we know that one in five New York City residents lives in poverty, you have to wonder about this headline from the September 2 New York Times: “City Feels the Economic Pinch, but It’s Only a Pinch, So Far.” A pinch? My ass.