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What's a small recent blip in the data?
...unskilled male wages in England have risen more since the Industrial Revolution than skilled wages, and this result holds for all advanced economies. The wage premium for skilled building workers has declined from about 100 percent in the thirteenth century to 25 percent now.
That is from Gregory Clark's A Farewell to Alms, p.298.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on November 2, 2006 at 04:39 AM in Data Source, History | Permalink
Comments
This does not hold in the US. Unskilled construction workers make about $10 per hour. Carpenters plumbers and electricians are paid near $20. I checked a English web site and the ratio there seems to be about 8 to 11.50 or about 50% premium.
Posted by: joan at Nov 2, 2006 8:39:40 AM
joan; He is saying that the relative ratio of skilled/unskilled wages has moved down, he doesnt say it's desapeared i.e. you place it at 2 in the US and 1.5, he says it was above that before the IR.
Posted by: econgeek at Nov 2, 2006 10:50:48 AM
Could it be that as educational levels rise, there are fewer and fewer people to fill unskilled jobs?
Posted by: Peter at Nov 2, 2006 12:02:18 PM
econgeek
A wage premium 100 percent is a factor of 2.
Posted by: joan at Nov 2, 2006 12:56:27 PM
Well I don't know that I am any better of a source than an English Web site, but from my personal experience as a guy who works in the trades I would say that the figures that Tyler is quoting are about right.
I don't know where that web site that Joan was quoting was getting its information from but I don't think you can get a decent laborer for 10 bucks an hour anymore even in America. Granted, for light work such as house cleaning people might get that little, but I think you would find that even that has gone way up from what they use to pay maids.
I read in the Wall Street Journal not to long ago that in southern California they had trouble getting "no experience required" laborers to work in landscaping for 15 dollars an hour. Laborers with experience were getting 20 to 30 in landscaping. I hate to think of what the masons have to pay their laborers down there.
I live in a relatively economically depressed area compared to southern California; but even in my area only new kids who you are not sure about are paid 10 bucks an hour. Siblings of mine who are not old enough to drive get 7 dollars an hour to rake leaves. If you got any kind of a track recorded, you should get 15 at least even in my depressed area.
Given the fact that in the old days you would pay any inexperienced kid practically nothing, I think you could argue that even 10 bucks an hour is a vast improvement in real terms.
If I was going to question the figures that Tyler was quoting I would question how you define equivalent skills. I think that a good argument could be made that Journeyman Masons and Carpenters in the middle ages had a lot more skill that the tradesman of today. But then, I know that the laborers back then worked way harder than most of the kids that get hired today……
Posted by: The Chieftain of Seir at Nov 2, 2006 6:24:22 PM
One difference between medieval and modern times is that on the medieval worksite, the best-paid skilled laborers are more than skilled laborers; they are laborers, overseers, and in some cases architects wrapped into one. So in statutes of wages, you'll see things like master masons and carpenters being paid 4d a day, then a class of skilled laborers like plasterers, daubers, thatchers, etc. being paid 3d a day, and the common laborers and assistants being paid 2d a day.
In medieval wage regimes, the differential between skilled and unskilled laborers is about a 50% premium. The top wage grade is not being paid as skilled laborers, but as professionals.
Posted by: Cyrus at Nov 2, 2006 11:02:12 PM
Well I highly doubt that this is true, given that most jobs are being outsourced these days to the third worlds specifically so that the employers can pay lower wages. This may have held true till the 1970's, but I don't think you can say that this is true anymore.
Posted by: jean at Apr 10, 2008 9:08:24 PM
