Re: The Value of the English Pound in the 1890's

Dave Postles (pot@leicester.ac.uk)
Tue, 24 Oct 1995 08:48:22 +0000

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Dear all,
I was intrigued by Carolyn Schriber's suggestion of how to make conversions
of money over time, but I wonder if the apparent equivalence in price of a
cheap horse in the 13th century and a cheap car today is a fluke, or, worse,
an indication that the conversion *doesn't* work. I'm no statistician, but
I would think you'd have to factor in somewhere the fact that the vast
majority of a laborer's wages in the 13th century went for food, while this is
not true for a minimum wage laborer today. Shouldn't a price conversion
formula take this into account? For example, the modern minimum wage worker
spends a lower percentage of his/her wages on food, hence more is free for
basic transportation. Anything coming from the non-food part of the pie is,
relatively speaking, less dear today than in was back then, because more of
the pie is available. Or am I entirely mistaken? (Always a possibility...)

Michael F. Graham
Assistant professor of history
University of Akron
r1mxg@vm1.cc.uakron.edu

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