170 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters. 
stances, unless, of course, lie is not steadily employed. The 
depreciation of paper money caused a rise in the nominal value 
of wages and prices. They were both raised, but not propor¬ 
tionately. The following figures from the Aldrich Report 12 
will bring this out. 
Wages (in the United States) 
Prices (in the United States) 
Ql yv> fnl a 
Average ac¬ 
All articles 
Average ac¬ 
Year. 
cording to 
Year. 
simply- 
cording to 
average. 
importance. 
averaged. 
importance. 
1860. 
100.0 
100.0 
1860. 
100.0 
100.0 
1865. 
143.1 
148.6 
1865. 
216.8 
190.7 
1868..... 
159.2 
164.9 
1868. 
160.5 
150.7 
1869. 
162.0 
167.4 
1869. 
153.5 
135.9 
In 1862 prices began to soar above wages. By 1865 the 
former were more than twice what they had been in 1860, while 
the increase in wages was between forty and fifty per cent for 
the same five years. In other words, the increase in prices was 
more than double the increase in wages. This was not entirely 
due to the inflation of the currency, but it may be attributed 
largely to that cause. From 1865 to 1873 wages gradually in¬ 
creased while prices went down. By 1869 the percentage for 
wages was higher than the percentage for prices. The figures 
in the Aldrich Report are said to be somewhat untrustworthy, 
but they seem to show that the condition of the workingman, 
while not an enviable one during the war period, improved dur¬ 
ing the latter half of the decade, so that by 1869 he was better 
off than he had been in I860. 13 
Statistics for Massachusetts show the increased cost of living 
in that state during the War. From the table given here we 
see that income has not kept pace with expenses. 14 
12 Pages 9, 13. 
13 Prof. Mitchell in his hook “Gold, Prices, and Wages under the 
Greenback Standard,” says, “The wage-changes from 1867 on . . 
cannot be explained as a defence of the standard of living prevailing 
in 1860. In other words, the advance in money wages from 1867 to 
1872, represents a real improvement in the position of wage-earners— 
very slow from 1867 to 1869, faster in the next two years.” P. 245. 
14 Report Mass. Bureau of Statistics, 1873, p. 522. 
