John Walton runs a sawmill, while his father putters around with gardening, mostly wildflower gardening. You however, never see any of them doing subsistence farming, like Charles Ingalls had to do on Little House on the Prairie. Meanwhile, Olivia and Grandma cook and sew, while the toughest work the kids do is their schoolwork. Finally, John Boy spends countless daylight hours writing (https://drunktv.net/2018/11/21/the-waltons-the-thanksgiving-story-1973-tv-episode-review/). And yet (https://waltonswebpage.proboards.com/thread/8161/poor#.XzuS-OhKiM8), they always have plenty of food for all eleven of them plus any guests that are constantly stopping by.

The MAD magazine parody (http://www.allaboutthewaltons.com/articles/mag18.php) had someone say "Funny, but with 75 million [or whatever] Americans out of work, John-Boy Walton manages to find a new job every week!"

Their main source of income came from the sawmill, and when the contracts he had dried up from time to time, he would seek work in another town nearby - there was a time when their lights got cut off too..Olivia sold eggs and did some sewing when they needed money for the cookie jar...Mary Ellen was good for catching Vernon on a good day to sell him antiques she'd found...They really didn't have enough land that they grew veggies on - just enough to feed themselves like others did during that time and that's where Grandpa came in, even though he helped out at the sawmill too...John and Grandpa knew how to hunt, so there was always meat on the table, except that one time when Mary Ellen burnt dinner and they wound eating breakfast food instead..

So I guess they just got along for as well as they could..

had someone say "Funny, but with 75 million [or whatever] Americans out of work, John-Boy Walton manages to find a new job every week!"

75% of Americans HAD a job. It was only 25% without one. Low pay jobs have always been available.