Biden to Head Task Force on Working Families

WSJ: The incoming Obama administration will name a high-level task force, chaired by Vice President-elect Joe Biden, to ensure that its planned economic stimulus package helps the middle class, the Obama transition office said Sunday.

The White House Task Force on Working Families will include cabinet secretaries and economic officials from across the government. It will seek to make sure that the planned package -- which would be the biggest implemented since the Depression -- slows the soaring cost of education, expand work-force training and arrest the eight-year slide in middle-class incomes, the transition office said in a statement.

President-elect Barack Obama also promised to bolster enforcement of labor standards and workplace-safety rules, and to protect retirement income.

The ongoing financial crisis has caused stock prices to slide, hurting many retirement portfolios, and is triggering an economic slowdown that is hitting lower- and middle-class families especially hard.