A new report says more Pennsylvanians are struggling to survive economically.

From an article in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review:

One in five Pennsylvania households do not make enough money to meet basic needs even though many live above the federal poverty level, according to a study released Monday.

"It's not a lack of work effort that's a problem," Diana M. Pearce, director of the Center for Women's Welfare at the University of Washington, said during a telephone news conference. "It's the lack of adequate wages."

Pearce is author of "Overlooked and Undercounted: Struggling to Make Ends Meet in Pennsylvania," a study conducted in cooperation with the nonprofit PathWays PA for the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry.

The report found that twice as many of the state's 3.4 million households are having a hard time making ends meet compared to data based on the federal standard for poverty. Just one in 10 households in the state lives in poverty, according to the federal standard.

How can this be?

Hasn't Gov. Ed Rendell increased state spending by $8 billion since he took office in 2003? Isn't he a Democrat and don't Democrats help the little people?

Where did all that money go?

How else can we deal with rising poverty except spend more money? That's what Ed Rendell has been saying and doing for the past 6 years. That's what Barack Obama and Congressional Democrats keep saying.

I'm confused. I'm beginning to lose faith in Democratic politicians. I can't believe they've misled us all these years. I can't believe they waste our tax dollars on pork projects that don't benefit working people. I'm not voting for Rendell again.

Read the full story at the newspaper's Web site.