ABSTRACT
Inadequate earnings were highlighted by both Charles Booth and Seebohm Rowntree as a fundamental cause of urban poverty. Operating in a sector of the labour market 'characterised by low wage and great uncertainty of employment', they depended for their survival upon such factory orders as were placed with them at the busy season. Completely divorced from general labouring, low pay was also a dominant feature of a multitude of outwork trades, some of which provided work for both sexes and others of which – as with needlework and box making – were the preserve of female, and child labour. Such poverty was the product of a diverse range of economic forces, including unemployment, underemployment, arbitrary deductions by employers and, in some districts, the operation of the truck system. Outside the 'slop' sector, therefore, they earned, when fully employed, an income, in the brisk season, sufficient to raise them the poverty line.
