The Measure of Poverty.



§ 1. The National Income, and the Share of the Wage-earners.--To give a
clear meaning and a measure of poverty is the first requisite. Who are
the poor? The "poor law," on the one hand, assigns a meaning too narrow
for our purpose, confining the application of the name to "the
destitute," who alone are recognized as fit subjects of legal relief.
The common speech of the comfortable classes, on the other hand, not
infrequently includes the whole of the wage-earning class under the
title of "the poor." As it is our purpose to deal with the pressure of
poverty as a painful social disease, it is evident that the latter
meaning is unduly wide. The "poor," whose condition is forcing "the
social problem" upon the reluctant minds of the "educated" classes,
include only the lower strata of the vast wage-earning class.

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? will naturally arise as the first questions. Now
although the data for accurate measurement of the national income are
somewhat slender, there is no very wide discrepancy in the results
reached by the most skilful statisticians. For practical purposes we may
regard the sum of £1,800,000,000 as fairly representing the national
income. But when we put the further question, "How is this income
divided among the various classes of the community?" we have to face
wider discrepancies of judgment. The difficulties which beset a fair