President-elect Barack Obama has announced the creation of a White House Task Force on Working Families. His announcement comes at a crucial time when nearly 23 million families are at risk of falling out of America’s middle class, according to a Demos study. The task force will be a major initiative targeted at raising the living standards of middle-class, working families.

Some of the goals for the task force include:

• Expanding education and lifelong training opportunities
• Restoring labor standards, including workplace safety
• Helping protect middle-class and working-family incomes
• Protecting retirement security

“President-elect Obama and I know that economic health of working families has eroded, and we intend to turn that around” said Vice President-elect Joe Biden, who will be the chairman of this task force. In addition to producing annual reports, we are pleased the task force will function in a transparent fashion where outside groups have the opportunity to chime in.