ms. sawhill, help us understand who the new poor are. are they people who just didn't slide very far from a status just above the poverty line? are or there many families that have really take an calamitous fall? earlier in the program we reported on the record number of foreclosures. >> i suspect there's some from both categories, ray, and you're quite right to point out that the poverty line is a rather arbitrary measure of who's poor and who isn't. what's the difference between having an income of $26,000 and an income of $18,000? they're both very low incomes by american standards, especially if you live in one of our high-cost cities. and, by the way, the poverty measure does not adjust for geographic differences across different areas of the country. >> couric: is the safety net holding. is it different to fall into poverty now-- and these numbers are from 2009, than it was in the middle of the great society programs 40 years earlier? is it a... is there as much to help those families and there was 40 years ago? >> i think in gener