Poverty is a subject that remains largely unexplored and the poor have so far occupied only a limited place in the social history of ancient Egypt. Egyptological literature bases a large part of its theories on the so-called elites of Egyptian society, particularly because of the abundance and quality of vestiges they left behind. Yet elites – those social categories that hold economic, politico-religious, cultural power or have close ties to it – represent only a small percentage of the population. What about those people who do not belong to the elites, those ordinary people (peasants, manual workers, etc.) who constitute a large part of the population and who may be considered poor because of their precarious social status, professional skills, material resources, but also their lack of power or influence? How can we write a social and economic history of ancient Egypt if we do not take into consideration those who constitute the majority of society? This subject, which is still largely unexplored in Egyptology – especially compared to the numerous studies on elites – is currently the focus of a new research program carried out at the Institute of Egyptology, at the University of Vienna. This paper will therefore provide a short overview of the study of poverty in ancient societies, and specifically, in Ancient Egypt. It will then focus on the presentation of the first results and, in particular, on what the texts tell us.