families budget as economically as possible. The figure of $1,260.62 was set as the minimum for a family of "small means" to purchases only proper food housing and clothing, but not cars, tractors, better housing or save for their children's education.
National Income Distribution and Poverty Rates
According to Michael B. Katz and Mark J. Stern in Poverty in Twentieth-Century America, through the usage of a reconstruction of early poverty data proposals, the level is lower:

the poverty threshold for a non-farm family of four was $925.18.
At the end of the 1930s, nearly half the households in America had
incomes below the poverty line;

This figure is very much in line with the historical poverty measurements. Therefore, 50% of the American population during the Great Depression were suffering deprivation on par with theIvan Vladislavic was born in 1957 and lives in Johannesburg. He has published four books of fiction, ›Missing Persons, ›The Folly‹, ›Propaganda by Monuments‹ and ›The Restless Supermarket‹. A new fiction called ›The Exploded View‹ is due in November 2004. This was written in response to artworks by Joachim Schönfeldt, and selections from the text form part of a joint exhibition, ›The Model Men‹.

The writer’s major current work is a series of short texts on Johannesburg streets collectively titled ›Portrait with keys‹. Sequences of these have been published with the photographs of David Goldblatt in ›Fifty-One Years‹ (MACBA, 2001) and Roger Palmer in ›Overseas‹ (Fotohof, 2004), preparatory to their appearance in book form. He is also preparing an essay on the work of the artist Willem Boshoff.

Vladislavic began