"From Ashland to Paducah and every community in between, Kentucky's lower-income working families often pay a premium for goods and services, making it difficult for them to build wealth, save for their children's futures, and invest in their upward mobility...The good news is that state and local leaders around the country are rallying behind new innovative, practical and low-cost initiatives to lower these prices. With these and other initiatives as models for action, public and private leaders in Kentucky can now also reduce these higher costs of living, and do so in ways that defy the substantial budgetary, economic, and partisan pressures that limit so many efforts to grow the middle class. Through a combination of initiatives that lower business costs, curb unscrupulous behavior, and boost consumer knowledge, public and private leaders can bring down these prices. This report is a roadmap for how to reach this goal and improve the spending power and economic security of lower-income Kentuckians..." -- executive summary (p.4).