The article summarizes the priorities of using market and state mechanisms of economic regulation with the involvement of legal sources and scientific and theoretical approaches of economic schools on issues of income regulation and social policy. The reasons for the emergence of the level of differentiation of incomes received from labor activity that affect unemployment and employment are considered, the need to determine poverty in our country and take practical steps in this direction in the future is considered. To do this, the conditions and ways to ensure that the proportion of the poor in the total population, which is one of the main indicators of ensuring sustainable economic growth, does not exceed a certain limit established in international practice are determined.