A new report by the Working Poor Families Projects calls out some disturbing facts about how public policies are increasingly failing American families. The report uses new census data to show that more and more families are dropping out of the middle class, and that by 2010 there were more than 10 million low-income working families.
- More than one in three working families had earnings below 200 percent of poverty
- More than 23 million children -- one in three -- lived in low-income working families
- Families with at least one minority parents were twice as likely to be low-income as white families.
"These families are the backbone of our economy -- caring for our children and seniors, preparing our food, working the cash registers..." writes WPFP's Brandon Roberts in the Huffington Post. "Policies at the state and federal levels can help change this trajectory of a shrinking middle class and a growing number of working families who struggle to make ends meet."
The solution? Higher education and skills training to lower unemployment and raise earnings; skills development; increased Pell grant resources and access; and improving wages, benefits and supports such as early care and education and health care for working families.