Whose Responsibility Are the Working Poor? [PSMag.com]

Over the past 35 years, with the exception of a few golden years in the late 1990s, the wages of low- and middle-income American workers have taken a beating. A new report from the Economic Policy Institute highlights an often-overlooked consequence of this trend: Low-income workers are increasingly reliant on government assistance to get by.

"Arguably the largest economic challenge facing the United States right now is the problem of wage stagnation," saysDavid Cooper, the report's author. "For the vast majority of workers, wages have basically barely budged since the late 1970s, and, in the case of low-wage workers, their wages have actually fallen when you adjust for inflation since the late 1970s."

[For more of this story, written by Dwyer Gunn, go to http://www.psmag.com/business-...are-the-working-poor]