ABSTRACT
The micro-economic level of the individual household, the family's ability to ease or to remove the harsh burdens imposed by poverty depended upon many more factors than the seemingly inexorable seven to ten years' swings of the conventional Juglar cycle. In broad terms these expedients can be classified under three headings. Firstly, there were those palliatives which were designed by outside agencies – town councils, Distress Committees, Poor Law authorities, and private philanthropy – to deal with the plight of the ablebodied, but not exclusively at times of cyclical unemployment. Secondly, a more ambiguous role was played by debt and debt agencies in alleviating, in the short-term, some of the more pressing needs of working-class society. Thirdly, a very limited range of options were open to the working classes which, if properly used, could either produce real improvement in their standard of living or do something to soften the debilitating pressure of indigence during a crisis.
