The main aim of this article is to analyze the business crisis and the income poverty of the coal industry in Chile between 1960 and 1970. In the first section, we seek to estimate income poverty of coal workers using ECLAC’ food share method. In the second section, we analyze the financial situation of coal companies and the role of the State in economic and social policies. Finally, we study the previous conditions that ended up in the nationalization of the coal industry in 1970. This research shows how the problem of the coal industry in this period is that the growth of the Chilean economy was lower than what their productive sectors needed.