OK, I read the whole article.

The results are consistent with the above except the title.  They never substantiate the claim "the poor get more numerous", which is in direct contradiction to the stats above which claim a 5.5% decrease in the number of returns under $25K.

Rather than give you some fully hashed out and totally spun review, let me just walk through the article and sort of highlight the things that popped out at me as I was reading it.

The gap between the state's rich and its poor is getting bigger. The bulk of job growth in California over the last generation took place at the top or bottom of the pay scale, a trend that has accelerated since the beginning of this decade. Jobs in the middle are scarcely growing at all.

Generally consistent with the stats above.  People at the top and bottom seem to be doing better which is reflected in the stats for 3.2 million escaping poverty and 3.4 million making it to the good life.

I also note that this article is focused on the issue in California.

The changes are documented in a report based on census and tax data set for release today by the California Budget Project, a liberal research and advocacy group.

Uh oh, red flag.

It's well documented that the gulf between highly paid and low paid people is growing across the country. But it is more pronounced in California, according to census and tax records.

Sounds like California has a problem, no surprise there (to me at least).

The divisions suggest that poverty will persist despite California's growing economy. And the erosion of middle-income jobs could make the American dream of climbing the economic ladder harder to achieve in the state, the budget project warned.

Um, and whose fault is that?

The breach has expanded this decade. From 1999 to 2005, 43.1 percent of California's job growth occurred among jobs at the lowest 20 percent of the pay scale. About 54.4 percent of new jobs were in the top 40 percent of pay. Only 2.6 percent of growth came among jobs at 20 to 60 percent of the pay scale.

These are job growth stats, so these are the numbers of jobs in these groupings as far as I can tell.  All three segments showed growth so that's hardly a pulling the rungs out of the ladder perspective.

Most of the growth happened in the top forty percent of the pay scale.  That sounds like a goo thing to me, why not to you?  Doesn't that mean people are doing better?  Somebody is filling those jobs and most likely it is someone moving up from the 20-60% bracket.  So that sounds like people moving up to me.

Note that moving up from the 20-60% bracket to the good life leaves vacancies in the middle.  Aren't those vacancies rungs on the latter for the poor to grab for?  So that 2.6% growth in the middle isn't necessarily as anemic as it sounds when you account for the obvious upward mobility taking place here.

43.1% Growth in the bottom 20% income bracket.  Well considering that California continues to be flooded with unskilled and undocumented workers why would this be a surprise?  But even so, if we are to believe the rhetoric about why the illegal immigrants are coming here in the first place then even THIS statistic represents an improvement for these people, right?  Even THIS is upward mobility ofr the illegals relative to what they had before.

A large group at the top enjoys a standard of living significantly higher than it did three decades ago. Another large group is living worse.

The people at the top are living better?  Well that's a good thing.  The people at the bottom are living worse?  Not so since most of them are the illegal immigrants and the Democrats keep reminding us that they are coming here for a better life.  So, is it better or is it worse?

From 1979 to 2006, the hourly pay of California's low-wage workers fell by 7.2 percent after adjusting for inflation. High-wage workers saw gains of 18.4 percent, while those exactly in the middle edged up 1.3 percent.

Hello, importing large volumes of unskilled labor tends to generate this statistic despite the fact that the people in question are argued to be better off.

The richest Californians are capturing a growing share of wealth. Income reported for tax purposes of the top 1 percent of the state's taxpayers jumped 107.7 percent from 1995 to 2005, after adjusting for inflation. During the same period, income of the middle fifth of taxpayers rose 9.3 percent.

The rich are raking it in, I guess.  Go talk to the Hollywood Elitists about that, they're the ones with the multi-million dollar estates, right?

So, the middle class saw an almost 10% improvement in real terms (after adjusting for inflation) and that's a bad thing?

California households are losing ground compared with their counterparts elsewhere. A California household in the middle of the scale saw inflation-adjusted income from wages, investments and other sources grow 3.1 percent between 1989 and 2005. Nationwide, income for a typical household rose 5.4 percent.

Yep, looks like California has some kind of a problem.  I wonder why they keep changing the date range in these stats, are they cherry picking for effect?

Jobs are growing at the top and bottom for many reasons. But those factors can be summed up in a word - globalization. California lost 464,700 manufacturing jobs - many of them paying middle-class wages - between 1990 and 2006, much of that work moving overseas.

And now the shoe drops.  Bam.  And just why might corporations want to flee the state of California in droves?  Could the tax structure there have anything to do with this trend?  Hmmm?

And just who is in charge of the tax structure in California if not the California legislature?  And what political party tends to dominate that legislature especially in the years in question?  Hmmm?

So the state of California drove 464,700 middle class jobs out of the state and then they wonder why the middle class job growth was only 2.1%  Ha.  That's funny.

Other trends are intensifying the income gap. California has lots of immigrants willing to accept low-wage jobs. Fewer of the state's workers belong to trade unions, which historically have given workers bargaining power.

But when they do accept those low paying jobs we are told that they are still improving their lot in life, so that's a good thing, right?

An increasing proportion of the nation's income is going to corporations, which benefits households that invest in stocks and bonds. And federal policies have reduced the tax burden on upper-income households.

This latter one always kills me.  And you people complain about ME using hyperbole.  Federal policies CAN"T lower the tax burden on the poor because they don't pay any taxes!  They don't even HAVE a tax burden.

Education is the main factor separating winners and losers. From 1979 to 2006, California workers with bachelor's degrees saw real wage gains of 19.8 percent. Wages of workers with master's degrees or higher jumped 34.4 percent. But high school graduates' wages fell 4.4 percent after adjusting for inflation, while the wages of those who did not graduate high school plunged 23.7 percent.

And now we enter the "Well Duh!" portion of the article.

Some experts believe California is losing middle-income jobs because of the high cost of doing business and public policies that drive employers out of the state.

Well Duh!

Many of the state's middle-income manufacturing and service-sector jobs have moved to states such as Arizona and Texas, where wages are lower and government policies friendlier to business, said Joel Kotkin, an expert on California's cities and a presidential fellow at Chapman University in Orange.

Well Duh!

The budget project's report "didn't deal with infrastructure, didn't deal with competitiveness," Kotkin said. "You have to look at tax climate and regulatory climate. Business climate matters in terms of job creation."

Well Duh!

The funny thing here is that this seems to be news in California!  :)

"We are mindful of the budget," Bustin, a native of Baltimore, said.

Gee, how interesting.  Over $200K per year and they still have to watch their budget.  Go figure.  Seems like everyone has that problem, eh?