A critical discourse analysis of the Adult Numeracy Core Curriculum is used to expose and challenge the underlying assumptions of the Skills for Life strategy, and to examine the way in which the text constructs subject positions for adult numeracy teachers and learners. The analysis finds that presuppositions include the unproblematic transfer of classroom numeracy learning to social practice, and the need for adults to learn functional numeracy rather than academic mathematics. Teachers are found to be constructed by the text within a deficit model, as needing help, guidance and instruction, while learners are positioned as also deficient, passive, childlike and "other". Learners are excluded from high-status academic mathematics and restricted to functional numeracy, and this finding is considered in relation to the theories of Bourdieu and Bernstein. Implications for the coming review of the Skills for Life core curricula are examined, and alternative discourses considered.