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Pessimism Perpetuated: Real Wages and the Standard of Living in Britain during and after the Industrial Revolution

Feinstein, Charles H.·1998·The Journal of Economic History
DOI 10.1017/s0022050700021100
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Abstract

New estimates of nominal earnings and the cost of living are presented and used to make a fresh assessment of changes in the real earnings of male and female manual workers in Britain from 1770 to 1870. Workers' average real earnings are then adjusted for factors such as unemployment, the number of their dependants, 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.

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Metadata

Authors
Feinstein, C. H.
Venue
The Journal of Economic History
Publisher
Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Published
1998-09
Volume
58
Issue
3
Pages
625-658
ISSN
  • 0022-0507 (ISSN-L)
  • 1471-6372
DOI
10.1017/s0022050700021100
OpenAlex
W2001808886
Cited by
491
References
0
FWCI
47.64
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Licence
www.cambridge.org/core/terms (unspecified, 3836 d)

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Feinstein, C. H. (1998). Pessimism Perpetuated: Real Wages and the Standard of Living in Britain during and after the Industrial Revolution. The Journal of Economic History. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0022050700021100

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