Must-Read: Charles Feinstein (1998): Pessimism Perpetuated: Real Wages and the Standard of Living in Britain during and after the Industrial Revolution

Must-Read: Charles Feinstein (1998): Pessimism Perpetuated: Real Wages and the Standard of Living in Britain during and after the Industrial Revolution: “New estimates of nominal earnings and the cost of living…

…make a fresh assessment of changes in the real earnings of male and female manualworkers in Britain from 1770 to 1870. Workers’ average real earnings are then adjusted for factors such as unemployment, the number of their dependents, and the costs of urbanization. The main finding is that the standard of living of the average working-class family improved by less than 15 percent between the 1780s and 1850s. This long plateau is shown to be consistent with other economic, political, and demographic indicators.

July 21, 2016

AUTHORS:

Brad DeLong
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