The September 22 issue of The Washington Post corrected the false claim that the overall poverty rate in the United States has steadily increased “since 1999,” which appeared in a September 19 Post editorial. The correction stated: “A Sept. 19 editorial on poverty should have said the poverty rate has been edging upward since 2000, not 1999.”

The correction came three days after Media Matters for America posted an item highlighting the error. As we noted, the data actually showed that the poverty rate declined every year of the Clinton presidency and has risen every year of the Bush presidency, hitting a low of 11.3 percent in 2000, the last full year of Clinton's presidency, and rising to 12.7 percent in 2004.