The article focuses on what U.S. Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan told to a U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. Greenspan reminded the lawmakers that the United States is facing a critical, long-running economic challenge: to guarantee that its workforce is equipped with the appropriate skills to compete effectively in a new era of global competition and rapid technological progress. Greenspan told the Senate Committee that technological advance is continually altering the shape, nature, and complexity of the economic processes of the U.S. Technology and, more recently, competition from abroad have grown to a point at which demand for the least-skilled workers in the United States and other developed countries is diminishing, placing downward pressure on their wages. These workers will need to acquire the skills required to compete effectively for the new jobs that the economy will create. Greenspan said that, during the past two decades, the supply of highly skilled workers has not kept up with a persistent rise in the demand for such skills. At the same time, demand for lesser-skilled workers has declined, he noted.