Describes changing economic and labor market trends in the United States and their implications for social and economic policies designed to help low-income working families and their children, particularly those families that include immigrants. Key trends are seen in an increasingly diverse workforce; a steady demand for low-skilled labor; a skills-and-income gap, wherein individuals with strong technical skills and college educations receive higher wages and those with fewer skills and lower educational attainment are relegated to a secondary labor market characterized by low wages, no job security, and minimal or no employee benefits; and a growing population of working poor. Immigrant workers face additional barriers to economic advancement, including ineligibility for cash transfer programs, food stamps, and public health insurance coverage. Policymakers need to expand the focus on career development, lifelong education and skills training, and support programs for working families. In the absence of this commitment, labor market trends suggest that children in immigrant families, in particular, are likely to stay poor, even though their parents are working.
