That's exactly what it was like, in the old days when charity worked. I think you would be hard pressed to find $3 million missing in the old days.
You didn't have generations which never worked a day in their lives driving cadillacs, having color TVs and expensive sports shoes and clothes, either.
What was the "poverty rate" in 1949?
Whatever the poverty rate was in 1949, I’m sure my family qualified.
However, my parents would have died before they took a handout. My father was a bus driver, and even back then, was smart enough not to join a union. Greyhound tried several times to get him to work for then, but he refused as he would not join a union.
My mom could make delicious meals out of a few ingredients: dried beans, cornbread, and either a salad from her garden, or some vegetable she had “put up” (canned) during the summer
There were three of us kids, and we really didn’t think of ourselves as poor because everyone in our neighborhood and our school was in the same boat. Both of my parents would have had to think that us kids were starving before they would have taken a handout—government or otherwise.
The three of us all have college degrees today, and have managed to live well.
We owe all of this to the example led by our parents, and for them, I’m very grateful.
But enough about me—didn’t mean to get so carried away......