Today, many jobs that once could support a family barely suffice to keep that family out of poverty. The implied bargain America offers its citizens is supposed to be that anyone who works hard and plays by the rules can support his or her family and move onward and upward. But for millions of New Yorkers, that bargain is out of reach; the uphill climb faced by earlier generations has become a sheer vertical wall. At the heart of this report, under all the facts, figures and policy analysis is a consistent theme: New York needs to prioritize the issue of the working poor and it needs to do so in a new way. New York currently focuses on "making work pay" by providing subsidized supports such as food stamps and tax breaks to low-income workers. State officials deserve credit for these choices, and the authors of this report want to be clear that these policies are desperately needed by low-income New Yorkers and must be continued and in many cases improved. (Contains 17 tables and 121 endnotes.) [This report was produced by the Center for an Urban Future and the Schuyler Center for Analysis and Advocacy as part of the Working Poor Families Project. Additional support for this project's research was provided by: United Way of New York City; Ira W. DeCamp Foundation; Robert Sterling Clark Foundation; JP Morgan Chase Foundation; New York Community Trust; and Bernard F. and Alva B. Gimbel Foundation.]