Under the Layer
Many people lived poorly in terribly built homes. They worked over the modern legal hours a week and earned around $1 at max. To show how little people had to live PBS gave out the stat,"12 million families earned less than $1200 per year". In the year 1880 that could've been around 12% of the whole population.
Conditions
To understand their condition many earned very little. Accordingly to PBS, "the average annual income was $380, well below the poverty line"(PBS). Even with People owning mansions over 300 millions dollars worth, the income was so low for so many people that average got down way under the poverty line. A dollar a day would pay for some food, and shelter. Nothing more could be bought or saved as basic necessities took all cash they worked for.
