Upon the basis of these and
other known facts Mr. Robert Hunter has estimated that the number of
people in the United States living below the poverty line is about
10,000,000 in years of average prosperity. If negroes are included in
this estimate of those below the poverty line, it is certainly not
excessive. Probably 10,000,000, or fourteen per cent of our population,
understates rather than overstates the number of persons in the United
States who live upon such a low standard that they fail to maintain
physical and mental efficiency.
Moreover, investigations in the countries of Europe show that the
estimate of fourteen per cent of our population living in poverty is far
from excessive. Mr. Charles Booth, in his _Life and Labor of the
People of London_, says that about thirty per cent of the population
of London live below the poverty line, and Mr. B.S. Rowntree found in
the English City of York about the same proportion. While poverty is
more prevalent in the old world than in the United States, it would seem
that in view of our large negro population it is evidently not excessive
to estimate the proportion of our people living in poverty at about
fifteen per cent.
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