prices and earnings in the 17th &18th centuries

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As promised, I've done a little digging further on this topic. It appears that there wasn't much inflation between the middle of the 17th, and the middle of the 18th century, so I've ranged between figures for both periods as if there was no difference.
In 1654 one oz. of gold was worth 2 pds, 10 shillings and 3&3/4 pence. That works out to 603.75d (pence);
in 2004, one oz of gold is worth $400.00;
This suggests the ratio 603.75d/$400= 1.51d OR, 1.51d=$1.00...in other words, a penny h'appenny bought what a buck buys today.
PAX..all those who will point out everything from differences in supply and demand to transport costs...it's our starting point.
Pay in London varied greatly with the class of the workman, the kind of work, the rank in the profession, and so on. As near as I can figure, in 1750 London, what we'd call a skilled blue collar worker could earn something more than 2pds a week. Various texts say that a working class family needed 40pds a year to live on. Many earned less, and in many jobs, you lived on the employers premises, and part of your wages were your room board and clothing so it is hard to establish direct comparisons.
An article in the Old Bailey records discusses what was stolen back in those days, and why. It mentions that pickpockets favored stealing pocket handkerchiefs of cotton, as the proceeds from the sale of one could keep a thief in food and lodging for a week....here are some figures on what stuff cost:
a man's suit, pds 8...the equivalent of about $1,200 today, but that's what a tailormade suit costs today...the difference is that we have the option of a factory made suit for $200. To rent an unfurnished room, 4d per week, to rent a house, 10pds a year or more. a loaf of bread, 1d, a cheap meal, 3d, a quart of beer, 1d (33 cents).
I think a firearm in 1750 cost the cost of whatever parts were English-made, plus the import cost, plus the labor, material and profit of the gunsmith...I believe the gunsmith in America would be striving for a living equivalent or better than the worker in England who was earning 50pds a year. I suspect that, with so much of what had to be bought being imported, he'd need the equivalent of at least 100pds a year to do that (note: I said "equivalent") I don't know how long it'd take a gunsmith to build a gun, but if he earned 4pds a week, and it took him 3 weeks, then he'd need 12 pds just for his contribution to the finished gun, plus whatever it cost him to buy the lock. If thatworks out to 9pds, and the average guy was living at a scale equal to the unskilled,25 pd a year Londoner,he'd need 50pds a year in America, so it would cost a guy 5 month's income for a piece...
I haven't bothered to give sources but will to anyone who is interested...I'd appreciate anyone's thoughts, including pointing out where I am really off base...Thanks, Hank

 

Your comparison of handmade vs. factory suits also applies to guns. There were no factories making the equivalent of $200 men's suits or $400 guns in the 17th century and depending on what you are paid as a salary today, a custom handmade rifle can still cost 4-5 months of income. However, guns in America in the early years were as necessary as a car is today so people paid what was required for an essential product.

 

It just ain't that easy. North America was a labor short economy from the start. That is why we instituted slavery, remember, we couldn't get enouth labor. England was overpopulated and skilled and unskilled labor was dirt cheap, the same situation existed in most of Europe.
North america did not have a labor surplus until the Great Depression, that is why the event was such a shock to the U.S. citizens. This was the land of opprotunity, remember, not the land of go there and get what you already have here. People came here to have more, to get more, or because they were kidnapped and forced to come!

As for cost of goods in England, that means little. Most traders doubled their money on any transaction. If the article went through four hands the price was increased by a factor of 4. =100-200-400-800. Mark ups of 1000% were not uncommon. This was considered as fair price for transport of the goods.

This means that both goods and labor were inflated in the colonies,but only a few miles variation in distance, and the change in hands one time of an article, could mean a great deal in price diference.

The only blacksmith in a county, setting his own rates, could make a good deal more money than a blacksmith in competition with a half dozen others in a town.
I teach school, I have a Masters degree, I make squat!
My Bro-in-law has a 2 year degree, he piddles with computers (literally), he makes twice what I do.

supply and demand are not fair, but you have to take them into consideration. How much is powder worth to a starving hunter in the wilderness with a rusty smoothbore. Read some of the examples of the inflated prices in the fur trade era.

 

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Ghost, agree it ain't that easy...it's a start. I suspect we'll never re-create the 18th century economy in a way that we can use it as some kind of reference book, but we can begin to appreciate bits of it more clearly....your point of worker shortage here, vs surplus in England is well taken...I'm not sure that it and slavery fitted that well, except in the Carolina's and Georgia.
One of the things that I can see from this little bit of digging is how little there was available to spend money on...a factor in what was a living income, and how folks spent the money they did have. The Pepys diaries show the spending of a guy who was clearly in the upper middle class, and he indulged himself in "toys", but what was available was pretty limited.
I understand your thoughts about your pay vs your brother...my daughter is a college professor with 3 degrees, and makes about the same as her brother who works on a factory production line..
You mentioned (I think you did) that you'd attempted a paper on this a few years ago...I'd be interested in seeing some of the material, and your conclusions..Hank

 

One of the things I have found while studying the economy of the frontier is that the life style has to be taken as part of the equasion. Until just a few years ago EVERYONE raised a garden. Buying food for consumption was unheard of. If you did not raise it you seldon got to eat it. Meat was the same, with each family raising a hog or two and a calf each year. that wasn't just farmers, it was everybody, includiong town dwellers! Hogs in the back yard! This was done well into the 1950s in my area.

I found in one reference that the average CASH income of a family farm of 160 acres was $12 a year in 1836. One must realize the Spanish and french coin was still tender at this time, cash was scarce, barter being the commmon method of exchange. One could barter at the local stores, between families and often for services. Cash was not necessary, convinient but not required.

the journals of New England farmers are filled with entries on how much labor each neighbor owed, what was received and the value in dollars or pounds. On the frontier hides might have been the medium of exchange, on the farms it was the labor of the sons in the family.

They were aware of the value of their labor even if they recieved goods instead of coin for their efforts. I had a ledger for a gunbuilder in my files at one time. He had one entry for the making of a smoothrifle at $12. During the same period he charged $20 for a rifle and restocked a rifle and freshed it out for $9. The smooth rifle as a cash purchase was a year of cash income, but the builder may have taken goats, pigs, chickens or turnips worth $12 as payment.

Government land, at the same time, sold for $1.35 acre in 160 acre minimum plots with CASH required for purchase. Land was not free, ask Boone and Kenton, It was not even cheap! Not when it took 14 years cash income to buy a government parcel. (homestead laws came latter) That was one reason troops took their pay in land, though often it was their grandchildren that actually opened the farms on their grants. Most of the grants were not a large as we might think either.

 

My parents and grandparents lived thru the Depression and they said that although cash was scarce, they did NOT go hungry. They all grew vegetables and fruit and raised animals for meat. A dime was a lot of money but much bartering was done. My mom's dad was a traveling blacksmith and shod horses or did miscellaneous work from a Model T truck. He received live chickens, a side of bacon or whatever else was offered in return. They were poor but not miserable...

 

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I think country people did better during the Depression tnan city folks, because of the gardening, raising a hog tradition...here in western NC, most country people still have a garden, and quite a few raise hogs for home consumption, and a few beef for sale...and all have outside jobs. As to Colonial era pricing, I haven't turned up much new, but hope to get my hands on a couple of source books that might contribute something...I did pick up a statement that "starting with few possessions, the typical colonist owned goods worth $1,150 in 1650 (1976 dollars, so multiply by at least 3), and $1,500 in 1750, $1,800 in 1775..." as part of a piece on the Colonial economy...most of the rest just bore out with Ghost has said about the barter economy...I suppose one could assign some kind of cash value to items bartered, but it would be more guess than anything else...I'm not going to add to this post, as I'm not going to have anything new to add for a while...if and when I have something that I think is interesting, I'll start a new post here in "General"...Best, Hank