Poverty line

“ And hence, increase of population, so far as it has yet anywhere gone, does not mean a reduction, but an increase, in the average production of wealth.
Look simply at the facts. Can anything be clearer than that the cause of the poverty which festers in the centres of civilization is not in the weakness of the productive forces? In countries where poverty is deepest, the forces of production are evidently strong enough, if fully employed, to provide for the lowest not merely comfort but luxury. ”

“ How can poor families consume more than they earn? Many supplement their income through welfare, Food Stamps, unemployment benefits, Medicare, Medic­aid, school lunches, rent subsidies and other programs, all of which the statistics leave uncounted. And the poverty statis­tics ignore wealth, which can be more important than current income. Workers temporarily laid off don’t get paychecks but they often have savings to fall back on. Although many retirees earn low in­comes, their houses, cars and furnishings are paid for, and they’ve got nest eggs. ”

“ One individual may save money from his wages, and many poor families might be made more comfortable by being taught to prepare cheap dishes. But if the working classes generally came to live in that way, wages would ultimately fall in proportion, and whoever wished to get ahead by the practice of economy, or to mitigate poverty by teaching it, would be compelled to devise some still cheaper mode of keeping soul and body together. ”

“ But since dependence upon wages for the support of life will be found closely related to the question of poverty, it is convenient to throw some preliminary light on the measure of poverty, by figures bearing on the general industrial condition of the wage-earning class. To measure poverty we must first measure wealth. What is the national income, and how is it divided? ”

“ That any system of relief to the able-bodied that does not lead to the increase of food, or articles that may be exchanged for food, will diminish the capital of the country, and that just in proportion as capital decreases, poverty will increase.
That, therefore, any measures of relief for the able-bodied ought to have for their object the encouragement of the employment of labour by private individuals in productive works; and that the efficacy of their action, as a stimulus to encourage and force such employment, will be the measure of their utility. ”

“ Chapter XIV The persistence of poverty amidst advancing wealth Look over the world today. In countries the most widely differing - under conditions the most diverse as to government, as to industries, as to tariffs, as to currency - you will find distress among the working-classes; but everywhere that you thus find distress and destitution in the midst of wealth you will find that the land is monopolized; that, for its use by labour, large revenues are extorted from the earnings of labour. ”

“ But just as such a community realizes the conditions which all civilized communities are striving for, and advances in the scale of material progress—just as closer settlement and a more intimate connection with the rest of the world, and greater utilization of labor-saving machinery, make possible greater economies in production and exchange, and wealth in consequence increases, not merely in the aggregate, but in proportion to population—so does poverty take a darker aspect. Some get an infinitely better and easier living, but others find it hard to get a living at all. ”

“ Moreover, the massing of the poor in large centres of population, producing larger areas of solid poverty, presents new dangers and new difficulties in the application of remedial measures.
However we may estimate progress, one fact we must recognize, that the bulk of our low-skilled workers do not yet possess a secure supply of the necessaries of life. ”

“ They render no useful service; they create no wealth; more often they destroy it." [3]
Next comes B, a thicker stratum of some 100,000, or 111⁄2 per cent., largely composed of shiftless, broken-down men, widows, deserted women, and their families, dependent upon casual earnings, less than 18s. per week, and most of them incapable of regular, effective work. Most of the social wreckage of city life is deposited in this stratum, which presents the problem of poverty in its most perplexed and darkest form. ”

“ Parliamentary reports have again and again revealed to us the miseries endured by certain portions of our working population. They have described the people employed in factories, workshops, mines, and brickfields, as well as in the pursuits of country life. We have tried to grapple with the evils of their condition by legislation, but it seems to mock us. Those who sink into poverty are fed, but they remain paupers. Those who feed them, feel no compassion; and those who are fed, return no gratitude. There is no bond of sympathy between the givers and the receivers. ”

“ House rent, and the rates laid upon house rent, clothes, food, the demands for small enjoyments, with the debt which often accompanies a too radiant conception of the possibilities of fixed income, leave little margin for superfluous expenditure. And as with the body, so with the soul. Considerable hours spent in not too exacting but conspicuously cheerless occupations, the natural harassments of Middle Class poverty, and the misfortune of loss or sickness, which is always unexpected and generally unprovided for, leave little surplusage of mental energy to be devoted to larger issues. ”

“ Thus wages and interest do not depend upon the produce of labor and capital, but upon what is left after rent is taken out; or, upon the produce which they could obtain without paying rent—that is, from the poorest land in use. And hence, no matter what be the increase in productive power, if the increase in rent keeps pace with it, neither wages nor interest can increase. ”

“ And it proposes to do this at a time when wages are higher than they have ever been before; when voluntary societies for securing the poor from want are flourishing and increasing as they have never done before; when the rapid decline of pauperism is one of the most marked and most universally recognised signs of national improvement. Can it be seriously believed that the addition of many millions a year to the State funds directly employed in the relief of poverty will, in the long run, tend to diminish pauperism or to encourage self-reliance and thrift? ”

“ The unequal distribution of money and the unequal distribution of population both contribute to increase poverty. That country should be accounted the richest, in which wealth is most equally distributed—that is, in which there is the smallest proportion of paupers. ”

“ A recent Heritage Foundation study examines the incidence of the bedrock problems of poverty—mal­nutrition, crowded housing and lack of ac­cess to medical care. It concludes that 8.7 million Americans, or just 3.7% of the pop­ulation, make up the nation’s “hardship population”—the truly poor. ”

“ If we reckon that the average wage of a working man is about 24s., that of a working woman 15s., we realize the strain which the loss of the male bread-winner throws on the survivor.
In looking at the gradations of income among the working-classes, it must be borne in mind that as you go lower down in the standard of living, each drop in money income represents a far more than proportionate increase of the pressure of poverty. Halve the income of a rich man, you oblige him to retrench ”

“ If there is a real vested interest in existence which entitles to compensation in some form when it is interfered with, it is that of a skilled producer in his trade; for that skill has not only given him a living, but has added to the wealth and prosperity of the community." [14] The quantity of labour displaced by machinery and seeking new employment, forms a large section of the margin of unemployed, and will form an important factor in the problem of poverty. ”

“ Yet with the whole force of the community thus devoted to production, no such consumption of wealth in proportion to the whole population takes place, or can be afforded, as goes on in the old country; for, though the condition of the lowest class is better, and there is no one who cannot get a living, there is no one who gets much more—few or none who can live in anything like what would be called luxury, or even comfort, in the older country. ”

“ Side by side with the possibility of accumulating a fortune there is that of becoming poor. This fact was not prominent at the entrance of capitalism into the field, when poverty was not yet a general phenomenon, but it increased more and more, so that at present we live in a society in which the greater part of the population is poor. ”

“ To this fundamental wrong we340 have traced the unjust distribution of wealth which is separating modern society into the very rich and the very poor. It is the continuous increase of rent—the price that labor is compelled to pay for the use of land, which strips the many of the wealth they justly earn, to pile it up in the hands of the few, who do nothing to earn it. ”

“ These are the low value of money in the rich state, in consequence of its plenty, compared with its high value in the poor one, in consequence of its poverty, and the experienced inapplicability of machinery or the division of labour to agricultural operations. ”

“ But that it does not make wages any higher or improve the condition of the class who have only their labor, is equally clear. These French and Belgian peasants practice a rigid economy unknown to any of the English-speaking peoples. And if such striking symptoms of the poverty and distress of the lowest class are not apparent as on the other side of the channel, it must, I think, be attributed, not only to this fact, but to another fact, which accounts for the continuance of the minute division of the land—that material progress has not been so rapid. ”

“ The mass of the poor in all countries have but little leisure, or means, or opportunity for intellectual cultivation. Wherever capital is in the hands of the few, the competition for employment among laborers becomes so great as to reduce the price of labor to a sum that will give the laborer but a mean and wretched subsistence in return lot- the severest toil of which his body is capable. ”

“ Thus, where the value of land is low, there may be a small production of wealth, and yet a high rate of wages and interest, as we see in new countries. And, where the value of land is high, there may be a very large production of wealth, and yet a low rate of wages and interest, as we see in old countries. And, where productive power increases, as it is increasing in all progressive countries, wages and interest will be affected, not by the increase, but by the manner in which rent is affected. ”

“ Thus, the unsatisfied desire for wealth, the competition of labor and capital for employment, would insure the extension of the margin of production, we will say to 18, and thus rent would be increased by the difference between 18 and 20, while wages and interest, in quantity, would be no more than before, and, in proportion to the whole produce, would be less. There would be a greater production of wealth, but land owners would get the whole benefit, subject to temporary deductions, which will be hereafter stated. ”

“ Housing and Food Supply of the Poor.--Once more, out of a low income the poor pay high prices for a bad article. The low physical condition of the poorest city workers, the high rate of mortality, especially among children, is due largely to the quality of the food, drink, and shelter which they buy. On the quality of the rooms for which they pay high rent it is unnecessary to dwell. ”

“ If we now suppose population still increasing but that the difference between the poorest land in use and the land next below that in quality is so great that it cannot be compensated by the increased power of labour that comes with the increased population - the minimum return to labour will be reduced, and with the rise of rents wages will fall, not only as a proportion, but as a quantity. But unless the descent in the quality of land is far more precipitous than we can well imagine, or than, I think, ever exists, the average production will still be increased. ”

“ It is fortunate that we are directing more and more attention to these and similar measures, for they strike at the heart of one of the great causes of poverty—the inability of the individual to make the proper use of his income. Unless our citizens are trained to spend money wisely, and to distinguish clearly between the relative values of services and commodities, an increase in wages will never eliminate malnutrition, illiteracy, and other elements of poverty. ”

“ Thus, increase of population, as it operates to extend production to lower natural levels, operates to increase rent and reduce wages as a proportion, and may or may not reduce wages as a quantity; while it seldom can, and probably never does, reduce the aggregate production of wealth as compared with the aggregate expenditure of labor, but on the contrary increases, and frequently largely increases it. ”

“ The rise in wages would be at the expense of rent.
Take now the same man or another - some hard-headed business man, who has no theories, but knows how to make money. Say to him: "Here is a little village; in ten years it will be a great city - in ten years it will abound with all the machinery and improvements that so enormously multiply the effective power of labour, will, in ten years, interest be any higher?" ”

“ For if wages are drawn, not from capital, but from the produce of labor, the current theories as to the relations of capital and labor are invalid, and all remedies, whether proposed by professors of political economy or workingmen, which look to the alleviation of poverty either by the increase of capital or the restriction of the number of laborers or the efficiency of their work, must be condemned. ”