hard. If she were rich, she would not need to work the late shift at the hotel beauty salon.

Also, Mrs. Jones shares her small cake with Roger. If she were rich, she would have had more cake to share with Roger:

After they share her small cake, she gives the boy ten dollars for some blue suede shoes and asks him to leave because she needs her rest.

No doubt, Mrs. Jones gives Roger ten dollars out her own necessity. She is trying to make a lasting impression on Roger. She is teaching him to not take things that do not belong to him.

Truly, Mrs. Jones lives in a meager setting. She does not have fancy food or bountiful desserts. She is far from being rich:

Merely alluding to the economic problems that cause widows to work late shifts and parents to leave unemployed teenagers unsupervised, Langston Hughes focuses on the universal power of love and trust in “Thank You, M’am.”

Out of the abundance of spiritual and nurturing care, Mrs. Jones teaches Roger a lesson he will not soon forget:

Hughes portrays the nobility of common people and the vitality of his African American culture in his works. Mrs. Luella Bates Washington Jones, whose name ironically recognizes both the slavery codes of the founders of the United States and the dignity of the common person, gives spiritual and physical gifts to the young boy.

Mrs. Jones is not rich.  This is demonstrated in the simple way she lives.

Although Mrs. Jones does give Roger the money for the shoes, it is not because she is rich.  She gives him the money because she feels an affinity for him, and she empathizes with his situation.

Mrs. Jones lives in a small apartment furnished with a kitchenette.  This demonstrates that she is not wealthy enough to have a house or even full-sized apartment.

When she got to her door, she dragged the boy inside, down a hall, and into a large kitchenette-furnished room at the rear of the house. She switched on the light and left the door open.

We also know that she is not the only in the “large house” and shares it with “other roomers.”  We can assume it is a one-room apartment because the main room has has a bed in it, although the room is described as “large” so she’s not terribly poor. 

Mrs. Jones lives a comfortable, simple life.  This is also demonstrated in what she feeds him—canned milk, lima beans, and ham.  Mrs. Jones explains that she works long hours at a hotel beauty shop.

Mrs. Luella Bates Washington Jones is not a wealthy lady when it comes to her finances, but she does have a wealth of character. She's willing to share the little she has with a boy who tries to rob her because she can see past his negative actions to the hopelessness and sorrow beneath them.

It's clear that Mrs. Jones isn't rich when one examines her circumstances. She lives in a house with other roomers. She's walking home alone at night. She has a large, utilitarian purse that breaks with only a pull on the strap. She says that she was young once and wanted things she could not get—showing that she has empathy with the boy's lack of money.

Near the end of the story, she explains that she works in a hotel beauty-shop that stays open late.

In Thank You M'am by Langston Hughes, it becomes obvious very quickly that, despite her impressive- sounding name, Mrs Luella Bates Washington Jones has no claim to riches. Her reaction to Roger when he tries to steal her purse, picking him up after he falls on the sidewalk and using the colloquial "ain't," reveal an average, upstanding citizen, making her own way home late at night - on foot which is something a "well-to-do" lady would obviously not be expected to do. Her down-to-earth nature is revealed as she recognizes Roger's apparent homelessness and takes him to her own home to wash his face and have some food. Mrs Jones lives in a shared space and recalls her own childhood when "I wanted things I could not get." She tells Roger that she works in a hotel beauty shop and she offers him some of her "10 cent cake." All of this reveals that she is a hard-working member of the working class and not too proud to help a boy in need even though she does not have much herself. 

In "Thank You, M'am," we learn that Mrs. Jones's home is a modest one.

When Mrs. Jones drags Roger to her home, she is not taking him to an opulent mansion.  Hughes gives us specific details about how her home reflects a limited economic condition.  Mrs. Jones lives in a house with other "roomers."  When Roger hears them laughing, he knows that "they were not alone."  Roger notices the home's "large kitchenette furnished room at the rear of the house."  There is a day-bed where Mrs. Jones talks to Roger about her life of economic limitation.  We are struck by the intimate, modest setting that contains a "gas plate and an icebox."  Roger does not wash his face in a large bathroom, but rather at a sink.   

Mrs. Jones' home bolsters her lesson to Roger.  Mrs. Jones emphasizes how Roger should reject immorality.  His poverty does not justify such behavior.  As Mrs. Jones reprimands Roger for stealing, she is speaking from the perspective of economic challenge.  If Mrs. Jones's home were a palace that reflected vast sums of wealth, her lesson of not needing to steal to get money would ring hollow.  However, when Roger sees where she lives, it is clear that she shares some common experience with him. He knows that she knows a life of financial limitation.  As a result, he can understand her moral instruction.

I would not call Mrs. Jones as rich or excessively wealthy.  I think that this is not Hughes' primary motivation as the writer.  Her presence is more effective if she is of moderate means, reflective of Roger's predicament.  There are a couple of elements that makes us understand this.  The first is that she is out late at night, with little to indicate that she is going "out on the town."  Her residence seems to be an apartment as opposed to a palatial mansion.  At the same time, the food that she cooks for her and Roger is not excessively ornate or elaborate.  She warms up beans on an open stove that is more like a hot plate than anything else.  Consider the analysis from enotes, itself:

Merely alluding to the economic problems that cause widows to work late shifts and parents to leave unemployed teenagers unsupervised, Langston Hughes focuses on the universal power of love and trust in “Thank You, M’am.”

In another sense, I wouldn't consider Mrs. Jones rich because of her generosity to Roger.  It seems as if she has a certain empathy with Roger because of their shared financial condition.  She disapproves of Roger's attempt to take the pocketbook, but she also understands the temptation that motivated why he did what he did.  When she reflects about her own life, the recollections indicate a lack of wealth, which makes her giving Roger the money even more poignant precisely because she is not wealthy.  She wishes to help Roger more than anything else, from one person who is economically challenged to another, indicating that social solidarity can be evident despite stressful financial conditions.