The Impact of Industrial Revolution in England on Its Working-Classes Standard of Living

This paper studies the impact of the Industrial Revolution on its working classes standard of living in England. There are two views associated with the standard of living controversy over the period of the industrialization-the optimistic view and the pessimistic view. This paper looks at more well-defined, specific, standard of living questions. It examines various empirical evidence on the subject. The empirical results suggest that it is very hard to draw a firm conclusion about the impact upon the working-classes standard of living of the Industrial Revolution based on the sluggish movements in consumption of limited imported items. However, there is no doubt that the improvements in the living standards before the late 1840s were small, if any, compared to the second half of the nineteenth century.