Originally Posted by BlackCrayon

1880s...
"About 45 percent of the industrial workers barely held on above the $500-per-year poverty line; about 40 percent lived below the line of tolerable existence.... About a fourth of those below the poverty line lived in actual destitution".

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"For millions, living and working conditions were poor, and the hope of escaping from a lifetime of poverty slight. As late as the year 1900, the United States had the highest job-related fatality rate of any industrialized nation in the world. Most industrial workers still worked a 10-hour day (12 hours in the steel industry), yet earned from 20 to 40 percent less than the minimum deemed necessary for a decent life. The situation was only worse for children, whose numbers in the work force doubled between 1870 and 1900."