The yearly movements in the total of expenses do not show much difference between agricultural and non-agricultural:
The main difference between the indices for agricultural labourers and for non-agricultural workers, were:
- the agricultural labourer was more affected by the yearly movements in the prices of cereals (upwards and downwards);
- the non-industrial worker up to the index 1860 was more affected by the accumulated prices of meat, butter, and cheese (which increased more than wages), because he had a larger proportion of these foods.
Expenses Index, This Study and Allen
Against the calculations of Allen (these are not given in detail, so we suppose them to be close to those of Clark), he has less increase in meat, cheese and butter, and this calculation has much more decrease in clothing costs. This study gives a considerable decrease from 1821 to 1822, which is due to the exceptionally good harvest in 1822.
We see that in both cases, the costs in the period 1815 to 1820 went down by about 20 %, and then remained fairly constant. The end-value 1860 in terms of 1770 is 147.6 from this study, and 146.4 from Allen.
The Industrial Revolution in England was not All Bad 