From the perspective of later years, it is clear that nostalgia for the late 1940s can be misplaced in other ways, for millions of people—especially blacks and Mexican-Americans—did not share in the blessings of prosperity. If there had been a "poverty rate" at that time, it would have identified at least 40 million people, 30 percent of the population, as "poor" by the standards of the era. Those standards, moreover, were harsher than in later years of higher expectations about life. In 1947 one-third of American homes had no running water, two-fifths had no flush toilets, three-fifths lacked
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