I always heard Jesus’ family was poor.
Which is exactly why we need to distinguish between fact and pious thinking.
The word for carpenter doesn’t exactly translate as our current word. St Joseph is often depicted making furniture, but the actual word (I cannot recall that word, unfortunately) is more of a house-builder carpenter than a furniture builder carpenter.
In any case, archeology tells us that his type of carpenter would have been middle class (maybe upper middle) income level.
It makes a lot of sense, too. Wood is on the rare side in that part of the world, so it was a fairly expensive commodity–at least the type carpenters use. There’s a lot of palm trees and small trees, but not forests like we have in Europe and America. Yes, Syria had the cedars, but that was a prized commodity. Also, carpenters need tools such as saws and hammers and nails, and those had to be made of metal, which made them expensive in ancient society. Simply put, poor people could not afford to be carpenters because the profession itself required a fair amount of working capital and carpenters were paid fairly well for their skills and their tools.
From the graves and homes of other carpenters from the same time and place, we can be pretty much certain that the profession itself was middle to upper-middle income level.
There is also no indication in Scripture that Joseph was a “poor” carpenter. It’s a pious thought, but there’s no evidence that the Holy Family was poor, at least not while St Joseph was employed.
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