AA.—: Wages in the Nineteenth Century (p. 724)

There was undoubtedly a very large increase both in nominal or money wages and in real wages (i.e. their purchasing power) in the United Kingdom during the course of the century. The subject may be studied in Giffen's paper on The Progress of the Working Classes in the last half-century, reprinted in Essays in Finance (2nd series, 1886; and the first and more important of them more recently in Economic Inquiries and Studies, vol. i.); Webb, Labour in the Longest Reign (Fabian Tract, 1897); Bowley, Wages in the United Kingdom (1900), National Progress (1904), and his articles in the Journal of the R. Statistical Society, and Wood's article on Real Wages and the Standard of Comfort since 1850, in Jour. R. Stat. Soc. (March 1909).

The conclusions arrived at by the last two statisticians for the period since 1850 are thus summarised in the article last quoted, 1900–1904 being taken by Bowley, and 1900–1902 by Wood, as basis, and called 100:

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REAL WAGES, 1850–1902.

	1850–4	1855–9	1860–4	1865–9	1870–4	1875–9
Bowley .. ..	50	50	50	55	60	65
Wood .. ..	56	54	59	63	69	75
	1880–4	1885–9	1890–4	1894–9	1900–2 or 4
Bowley....	65	75	85	95	100
Wood....	76	86	92	97	100

Compare also the table in Appendix X above.

The progress in real wages began before 1850; thus, e.g. Bowley's Index Numbers for 1830 and 1840 are 45 and 50 respectively (see National Progress, p. 33); and, for earlier periods, his conclusions are that while during 1790–1810 real wages were falling slowly, during 1810–1830 they were rising slowly (see Appendix (1908) to Palgrave's Dictionary of Political Economy). The general result would seem to be a large rise on the whole between 1810 and 1900, though between 1840 and 1860 and again between 1873 and 1879 wages were almost stationary.

During the century a progress in real wages of substantially the same character took place in other countries. For a comparison by Bowley of the United Kingdom, the United States and France for the period 1844–1891, see Econ. Jour. viii. 488; and for France, 1806–1900, see Gide, Économie Sociale, p. 64.