The study is concerned with empirically deriving a labor supply function for members of poor families. It contains a definition of poverty as well as a brief summary of the characteristics of families in poverty in 1966 and a review of the existing literature on the supply of labor by the poor. A general model of labor supply based on family utility maximization is developed. In constructing the model, attention has been given to the characteristics of the poor worker which may differentiate his work-leisure choice from that of his nonpoor counterpart. The results indicated that variation in the poor family head's effective wage rate has a stronger effect on the quantity of labor supplied by the head than any other explanatory variable used. A comparison of poor and non-poor family heads revealed that the income effect resulting from a change in the wage rate is more likely to dominate the substitution effect for the nonpoor than it is for the poor. (Author)