Addams encloses a letter from James Barr and supports his idea that the American Association for Labor Legislation should hold a conference on the unemployed.
Addams discusses the economic, social, and human toll of unemployment and offers some creative solutions to the problem being employed in England. This is the ninth article of a monthly, year-long series on economic and social reform in America and women's roles in affecting change.
Straus declines Addams' request to participate on the Committee on Immigrants of the National Conference of Charities and Correction because of his position as Secretary of Commerce and Labor.
Addams discusses the problems that charity workers face when they bring middle-class assumptions about the poor to their efforts to practically help them.