Of the 46,000 people surveyed, the study revealed that 20,000 were living in poverty; defined by falling below a calculated minimum weekly sum of money 'necessary to enable families to secure the necessities of a healthy life'.

Firstly, in 25% of the cases, individuals or families were impoverished as a result of an absolute lack of income, on account of the chief wage-earner being either dead, disabled or otherwise unable to work.

Another future Prime Minister, Winston Churchill (who famously "crossed the floor" in the House of Commons and sit as Liberal Party member in 1903) was equally influenced by the study.

When addressing an audience in Blackpool in 1902, he stated that Rowntree's book had "fairly made [his] hair stand on end", going on to call the revelations of the study in regard to poverty, a "terrible and shocking thing", and subsequently expressing sympathy with "people who have only the workhouse or prison as avenues to change from their present situation.

In addition to this, Churchill concluded from Rowntree's findings that it was quite evident "that the American labourer is a stronger, larger, healthier, better fed, and consequently more efficient animal than a large proportion of our population, and this is surely a fact which our unbridled Imperialists, who have no thought but to pile up armaments, taxation and territory, should not lose sight of."