Living Standards During the Industrial Revolution

What happened to the poor?

Conclusion

1. Real wages stagnated in late 18th century and rose thereafter but not as fast as was previously thought. After 1850 real wages started to grow more rapidly. (adjusted for umemployment the story is the same).
2. Taking into accounts other factors such as disamenities, improving life expectancies (both in agriculture and the city) etc there was probably a marginal improvement in standard of living beginning in early 19th century and accelerating after 1850.

Notes on [refId:lindert+_1983]

1. Table 5 and fig 1 present meat of their results in form of real wages for different occupations at constant prices. Imply:

   After prolonged wage stagnation, real wages, measured by the evidence presented here, nearly doubled between 1820 and 1850. This is a far larger increase than even past "optimists" had announced. It is also large enough to resolve most of the debate over whether real wages improved during the Industrial Revolution. Unless new errors are discovered or a host of declining wage series are added, it seems reasonable to conclude that the average worker was much better off in any decade from the 1830s on than in any decade before 1820.

   [reId:lindert+_1983:11-12]
2. Then proceed to see whether taking into account other factors in standard of living alter this conclusion. Items such as:

   1. unemployment

      Here adduce lots of circumstantial evidence that indicates that employment not that high, and certainly not high enough to cancel out gains (1820 - 1830). 1837-1839 2.7%, 1840-1850 4.4% and in worst years (1842-3) 9.4%.

      This information is sufficient to demonstrate that the (alleged) net rise in unemployment could not have exceeded 7.37%, and it may well have fallen.
      The trend in unemployment thus could not have detracted greatly from improvement in workers' real wages, and it may even have contributed to their improvement.

      [refId:lindert+_1983:16]

   2. health

      Past observers have inferred that mortality must have worsened for city-dwellers (and for the working class) since mortality was higher in fast-growing cities. Such inferences are unwarranted. In fact, mortality improved (receded) in the countryside and most cities, and did so by enough to improve national life expectancy from about 1800 on. ...
      In short, .... it can be shown that any tendency of the rising industrial centres to lure adult workers to an early death was fully offset, or more than offset, by the lengthening of life both in the cities and the countryside.

      [refId:lindert+_1983:21]

   3. work environment (discipline, independance, ...) + housing and environment

      From 1781 to 1851 put an upper bound on disamenities and living cost increases for average worker at 9.7%. And this is 'a generous overestimate'. Other estimate suggest 2.5% or 3.3%. [23]

   4. social justice/injustice

   5. Employment outcomes for women and children as opposed to adult males. Women and children wages patterns (from the little we can glean) appear similar to men. [18-19]
3. Final conclusion in Table 7 that provides holistic estimates of standard of living 1781-1851. Significant improvements of the order of 60%. Emphasize need for further research on inequality issues.

Notes on [refId:feinstein_1998]

1. Recomputes nominal wages and price index 1770-1882 to get real wages.
2. Major change of [refId:lindert+_1983] is change in price index (among others: better estimates of rent, additions of food goods (potatoes, milk, cheese, oatmeal, beer) + better estimates (confirm that wholesale prices are accurate). This is computed to have dropped considerably less than LW price index 1810-1850.
3. Real Wage Trends. Change in real wage = 100 * (End Real Wage / Start Real Wage). Source: [refId: feinstein_1998:p645] Table 4.

   Year Range	Lower Bound	Upper Bound
   1778-1882 to 1848-1852	119	155
   1808-12 to 1848-1852	124	139

4. Also include version adjusted for unemployment and for Ireland. Neither item has much effect on outcome