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Is there anything real about real wages? A history of the official B ritish cost of living index, 1914–62
Author(s) -
Searle Rebecca
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
the economic history review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.014
H-Index - 49
eISSN - 1468-0289
pISSN - 0013-0117
DOI - 10.1111/1468-0289.12059
Subject(s) - index (typography) , cost of living , politics , real wages , tariff , economics , context (archaeology) , standard of living , labour economics , economy , classical economics , wage , market economy , macroeconomics , law , political science , international economics , history , computer science , archaeology , world wide web
This article explores the history of the cost of living index, tracing its evolution from its introduction in 1914 as a device designed to furnish an adequate evidential base for the tariff reform debate, through to the mid‐twentieth century, when it had become one of the most important measures in the B ritish economy, influencing the wages of millions of workers. By embedding the index within the wider economic, political, and social histories of the period, the article presents a consideration of how it came to exert such influence over the economy, and why, despite its widely acknowledged inadequacies, the index remained tied to a rough estimation of a pre‐1914 pattern of working‐class expenditure until 1947. Through examining the debates surrounding its compilation and the context in which decisions were taken about its modification, it is demonstrated that, far from being a neutral statistical measure, the official cost of living index was essentially political in nature.