Understanding wages, rents, prices, etc., in earlier times, and trying to equate them with present costs is extremely difficult. On the web-site Measuring worth (Gregory Clark, What Were the British Earnings and Prices Then? (New Series), MeasuringWorth, 2022) are tools making available the average earnings and retail price index in Britain over the centuries. The graph below shows the increase in earnings over the centuries from 1500 to 2010.
However, this is only part of the story. Also on this web-site is a tool that enables a calculation of the “relative income” over this period which reflects the “purchasing power” of these earnings. The graph below shows that even though earnings have increased dramatically over this 500 year period, what these earnings will buy has actually decreased! James E. Thorold Rogers (1884) presented evidence that the golden age for British working people came at the end of the 15th century and early parts of the 16th century. The graph below certainly seems to support this view; i.e., despite the apparent increase in wages, the cost of living over the centuries has overwhelmed any wage gains – the notable exception being during the Industrial Revolution from around 1825 until the onset of the Great Depresssion (c. 1930).
OLDHAM Thomases 