We can’t take less share of the crop – we’re half starved now. The kids are hungry all the time. We got no clothes, torn an’ ragged. If all the neighbors weren’t the same, we’d be ashamed to go to meeting.
– John Steinbeck
The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 5. As tenant farmers try to reason with landowners threatening to evict them, their dire and distressing circumstances are revealed. They haven’t enough money to feed and clothe their families.