Abstract
Annual series of average hourly compensation, average hourly earnings, and average hourly benefits of manufacturing production workers are presented for 1800–2006. The new CPI series is used to convert compensation to a real-wage series. Comparison with the real-wage historical series of other authors is made, and there are divergent results. “Value of the consumer bundle” is utilized to develop alternative measures of the standard of living for the worker group.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Adams, Donald R., Jr. (1968). “Wage Rates in the Early National Period: Philadelphia, 1785–1830.” Journal of Economic History 28 (September), pp. 404–426.
Carter, Susan B., Scott Sigmund Gartner, Michael R. Haines, Alan L. Olmstead, Richard Sutch, and Gavin Wright, eds. (2006). Historical Statistics of the United States, Earliest Times to the Present, Millennial Edition, 5 vols. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Coelho, Philip R. P., and James F. Shepherd [CS] (1976). “Regional Differences in Real Wages: The United States, 1851–1880.” Journal of Economic History 13 (April), pp. 203–230.
David, Paul A., and Peter Solar (1977). “A Bicentenary Contribution to the History of the Cost of Living in America.” In Paul Uselding, ed., Research in Economic History 2, pp. 1–80. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.
Goldin, Claudia (2000). “Labor Markets in the Twentieth Century.” In Stanley L. Engerman and Robert E. Gallman, eds., The Cambridge Economic History of the United States, vol. 3, The Twentieth Century, pp. 549–623. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Lindert, Peter H., and Richard Sutch (2006a). “Consumer Price Indexes, for All Items: 1774–2003.” In Carter and others, pp. 3.158–159.
Margo, Robert A. (2000). Wages and Labor Markets in the United States, 1820–1860. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
______ (2006a). “Index of Money Wages for Unskilled Labor: 1774–1974.” In Carter and others, pp. 2.256–257.
______ (2006b). “Wages and Wage Inequality.” In Carter and others, pp. 2.40–46.
Officer, Lawrence H. (2008a). The Annual Consumer Price Index for the United States, 1774–2007. MeasuringWorth website.
______ (2008b). What Was the Value of the US Consumer Bundle Then? MeasuringWorth website.
______ (2009). Two Centuries of Compensation for U.S. Production Workers in Manufacturing. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Officer, Lawrence H., and Samuel H. Williamson (2006). “Better Measurements of Worth.” Challenge: The Magazine of Economic Affairs 49 (July/August), pp. 86–110.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2022 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Officer, L.H. (2022). Compensation of Manufacturing Workers. In: Essays in Economic History. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-95925-8_11
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-95925-8_11
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-95924-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-95925-8
eBook Packages: Economics and FinanceEconomics and Finance (R0)