It was about a year ago that presidential candidate Sen. John McCain misread our financial condition and declared: “The fundamentals of our economy are strong.”

At the time, it was becoming frighteningly clear this wasn’t true. On Sept. 15, 2008, the collapse of Lehman Brothers signaled a financial reckoning was at hand, and the Dow Jones industrial index plunged more than 500 points.

Last week the Census Bureau confirmed how widely the pain of the recession has been shared. In 2008, income fell for all races and categories, and the rate of poverty increased.

According to the report, median household income fell 3.6 percent, from $52,163 to $50,133, wiping out the gains of the  three previous years. Adjusted for inflation, median income now rests near the level it was 10 years ago. In the Northeast, incomes held up better last year, perhaps because they fell in 2007.

The downturn has plunged many into poverty. The statistical threshold of poverty has remained unchanged for many years ”“ $22,025 for a family of four. Last year, 39.8 million people lived below this meager level, the most since 1960. The poverty rate in 2008 was 13.2 percent, according to the Census, the highest its been in the last decade.

By most measures, the fundamentals of  the 2008 economy were far from sound. It was a year that brought fear and hardship to many, and the bad times still seem far from over.

Despite a  growing consensus that the recession is easing, unemployment rates  remain stubbornly high ”“ higher than in 2008, in fact. It’s a sign that a sound economy is still a distant goal.

When the Census Bureau compiles the 2009 report, it may show that the second year of the recession was worse than the first.

— Questions? Comments? Contact Kristen Schulze Muszynski or Nick Cowenhoven at 282-1535 or kristenm@journaltribune.com or nickc@journaltribune.com.