The Census Bureau report on poverty, incomes and insurance had a surprise: There were more than 1 million fewer uninsured people last year than the year before.

The story behind that is distressing: More than a million new people were added to Medicaid, a health insurance program for the poor that taxpayers pay for.

A real decline?

No. But here’s what declined: The Commonwealth Fund, a private foundation, reported that health insurance coverage through employers shrank. Employer-based health insurance last year covered 59.3 percent of the population, down from 59.7 percent.

The staff of the Joint Economic Committee of Congress figures the ranks of the uninsured have increased by 7.2 million since 2000.

The lack of insurance can easily be a precursor to poverty.

And poverty, when you look closely at it, is a dire thing. The Census says 37.3 million people were living in poverty in 2007. Of those, 13.3 million were children.

The poverty level for a four-person family in 2007 was $21,203.